It's been a very exciting couple of weeks with the selection for the World Cup and then travelling out to Madrid for a recce. Selection was now over a week ago. Once again another nerve racking day was ahead of me. We were told selection would come out at noon but unfortunately I wasn't near my computer during the day as I was having to get a new passport having had my old one stolen whilst on holiday. At about half eleven in the morning I couldn't wait any longer to see if it had arrived, so I got my sister swinging into action on the internet to check my e-mails to see if the team had been announced. It had, I sat in the car on the other end of the phone my sister slowly and painstakingly read out the team, I'm sure she must have scrolled down the letter first to check my name was on the list but finally she got to the W's in the list and sure enough there was my name. I was selected for the World Cup. I was so excited. The smile couldn't have been wiped off my face for the rest of the day. What was even more exciting was that there were three selected from Chelmsford HC in the team. Katie Roberts and Chloe Rogers were also selected. A great achievement for the club.
The team having been selected were straight into training the weekend after selection, then two days home and we flew off to Madrid for a recce. I am now writing this having just flown back into the country. Madrid is a great setting for the World Cup its a beautiful city and the venue 'Club de Campo' is fantastic it's a mammoth sports club with polo, golf, swimming, hockey and tennis all within the same grounds. The pitch is lovely to play on. We have had five training sessions on the pitch over the course of the last few days and experienced the beautiful summer heat of Spain of forty odd degrees!!! (We are hoping for a little cooler later in the month! Apparently its supposed to be around 23 degrees a good temperature to play in!) The grounds seem no where near ready to host a World Cup yet but always the way it gets closer and closer and suddenly stands are built, signs and banners are erected and the place changes in atmosphere. I can't wait to be back. It was a great feeling just walking onto the pitch we will be playing on in the world cup and that was just for training, i can't wait for the feeling I'm gonna get when walking out for our first match.
So in exactly 17 days we will be flying back to Madrid for the holding camp and 23 days we'll be playing our first game. In these next few weeks we are really going to have to focus on world cup and everything will be about preparing to play my best hockey by the end of the month.
I hope to write a little more often now and having checked out the hotel I should be fine to keep in contact whilst I'm in Madrid.
So till the next time.
Adiós.
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