We left home at about 6:45am to get to Lords cricket ground. The test has been sold out for a while now, and we were lucky to have Reciprocal Membership Cards for the MCC.
We arrived at about 7:10am and the members queue to get into the ground was already very long. It stretched from the Grace Gates to around the back of the media centre in the east, maybe 300m. We had heard that the first members on the queue start lining up at around 4:30am. And they are old members. The queue was 99% white men. By the time the queue started moving it was over 500m long.
We chatted a bit with the members just in front and behind us in the queue. They were interesting and gave us some good information on thing to do and where to sit.
They have a good system here, members are let in first, then members guests and then the public.
The gates opened at 8:30am. We were in by 8:40am and we made our way into The Pavilion. We got seats on the top level at the back under shade and just to the right of the wicket. 
The Lords ground is well known for its slope, but it isn’t until you see it in real life that the steepness of it becomes very self evident, it is over 8 ft height difference from the north to the south boundary. We had another Australian sitting next to us(from Melb). After we settled in I went down and got us a bacon bap each from the Long Bar. A tradition we were told!
A bit of rain went through 25 mins before play was due to start.
Play got under way at 11:05am and they announced that they would be making up today for time lost yesterday due to rain. Australia were batting and Steve Smith got a 4 off the first ball of the day, and we were underway.
At lunch we went for a walk through the Pavilion. Out onto the front veranda near each of the player balconies, into the library, various members bars and the Longroom again.
We got some good photos of the ground and the play. I got a photo of Cameron Green just as he was about to hit a ball for which he got out, caught on the boundary.
The Australian innings finished with Lyon batting despite a bad calf injury, he couldn’t run. That meant it was boundaries or nothing for Australia. Lyon got a boundary and the crowd cheered him on, but it wasn’t long before he was out. England needed 371 to win.
We left at about 6 :10pm, with England 4 for 70 something. They were going to play through to until 7:05pm to make up lost time due to rain.
It seems there was a bit of controversy after we left, a catch that had been given out by the field umpires that was overturned by the 3rd umpire. Always some drama in the Ashes Tests.
The bus ride home was slow and uncomfortable. We sat downstairs at the back, above the engine by the heat coming from our seats and there was this weird smell. We won’t sit there again! Anyway, we got off where we got on in the morning and were home in no time.
We really enjoyed our day at Lords, meeting interesting people and watching the match.
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