STRAWBERRIES and cream? Check. Pimms? Check. A couple of days booked off work to watch wall to wall coverage? Check. Yes, Wimbledon is here and I am ready, willing and able.

In years gone by the current heatwave would have thrown a spanner in the works since you had to stay indoors and watch the old-fashioned tellybox. I recall one sunny Wimbledon in the mid-1990s spent with a shoebox-sized transistor radio in tow and a dodgy signal that would invariably cut out during tie-breaks. That was mobile technology at the time. Also, tennis on the radio is an acquired taste, even for the most ardent of fans.

These days, of course, live action from the All England Club can be streamed to devices that are truly mobile, meaning you can watch from the garden, park or beach, anywhere, in fact, that the 4G is strong and the sun doesn’t get in your eyes. Sheer bliss.

Unfortunately, one big item on the Wimbledon checklist will be missing this year. Andy Murray last night pulled out of the Championships despite promising recent performances at two warm-up tournaments as he tries to return to the top flight after a year out following hip surgery,

Anyone who has followed the two-time Wimbledon champion and former world number one over the years will know that he wouldn’t have taken this decision lightly and will be massively disappointed at missing out on his home grand slam. For those at the very top, it’s not just a question of being physically fit enough to play, but whether you are able to compete at the highest level, and Murray obviously feels he’s not there yet.

His fans in Scotland and around the world will be disappointed too, especially since all the noises right up to the last minute had seemed so positive.

But the Murray we have seen in front of the cameras over these last few days and weeks is a notably more wistful one, and I think that points to someone who is trying to come to terms with big new uncertainties and realities. No one - not even he - knows whether he will ever play again at the level that took him to the top of the game.

And we armchair tennis fans, who have come over the years to expect and demand so much, now need to give the guy a break. After all, he has nothing to prove to anyone.

Beyond the personal frustration for Murray and his camp, the last few weeks of “will he or won’t he” has highlighted something else: we as a nation should begin to prepare ourselves for an inevitability I don’t think we are quite ready to face. Whisper it, but Andy Murray cannot go on forever.

As painful as it is to even think about, never mind discuss, the fact remains that one day he will stop playing.

When this day comes (and let us hope it is later rather than sooner, after all, he’s still only 31; Roger Federer came back from injury and is still winning grand slams at 36) it will obviously be a significant moment primarily for Murray and his family. I can’t imagine what it is like to stop doing the thing that has filled your whole life every single day since you were a small child, that will continue to define you even when you no longer do it.

Mere mortals may imagine that retirement will come as a relief, offering escape from the relentless mental and physical pressures of being a top athlete. But as Murray himself put it so unequivocally at the weekend, “I love the sport. There’s nothing about it that I’d be looking forward to giving up.”

When it comes, Murray’s retirement will be a tough one for Scotland, too. Granted, we will no longer have to endure the torturous pleasure and pain that comes with watching him play, the stomach-churning armchair masochism that we choose to put ourselves through.

But being from a small country that produces such a champion brings with it a special, more concentrated and distilled type of feeling that can be hard to articulate to those from bigger countries more used to producing sporting superstars, and thus more able to be blase.

In small nations like ours, everyone feels that wee bit closer to the greatness and shines more brightly in the reflected glory.

Anyone who has ever spoken to a Jamaican about Usain Bolt will understand something of this. And make no mistake, Andy Murray is our Bolt.

His absence from the tennis tour over the last year offered a painful reminder of what is to come. As a fan and laughably bad but enthusiastic player of the game myself, I followed the tournaments as I always do, and saw some great matches. But without Murray’s involvement, the whole experience was like drinking non-alcoholic wine.

I discovered that the pain of watching him lose is ultimately as important as the pleasure of watching him win, and I missed both of these feelings terribly.

Over the last 13 years we have learned to take Murray’s genius for granted. We can’t do that any more and from now on, every time we see Murray on a tennis court we must savour it like never before. And remember the good times.