Andy Murray column: I don't lock myself in a room just thinking about tennis

Weekends are the most important days of the year when you're a tennis player, so if you're working that's a good thing.

We play finals on Sundays, most semi-finals are on Saturdays and if a tournament starts on a Monday, we're practising the weekend before.

So it's pretty rare to have a weekend when we don't do anything.

We do get days off at other times. When I got back after the Australian Open in January I had four or five days when I wasn't doing anything, and that's your time to do normal stuff. You get to be with your family, watch TV, go out for dinner, see friends and do normal things.

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It's pretty rare at this time of year - at least you hope it is - but that doesn't mean I get home every night and lock myself in my room, just concentrating on my match.

Maybe I don't do loads around the house during the two weeks of Wimbledon but I still want to spend time with my family when I can.

For example, on Friday I only saw my daughter for an hour in the morning and I want to make sure I spend the time available with her.

I've got two days without a match this weekend and I'll try to do stuff with my family in the mornings and the evenings around practice. Kim and I watched an episode an evening last week of a show called The Night Of, which we finished on Thursday.

I'm fine switching off from the tennis but I like being busy over the weekends because it means I'm doing well. I'll get plenty of weekends off when I finish playing.

'I was going to roll down the hill and up to the pump'

That feeling when you get to the petrol station with your car running on fumes

There was a moment the other night when I was stuck in traffic, with the fuel gauge close to empty, and I thought, 'this isn't looking good'.

Home felt a lot further than 11 miles away with Wimbledon in gridlock and about six miles' worth of petrol in the tank.

I always let it run down low, although not normally that low.

My car lets me know when I've got 35 miles left, and when I left home that morning I had 30 miles, so enough to get there and back.

Unfortunately there was an accident along the route and it was taking some people two hours to get in. I use an app that got me to the All England Club in 45 minutes, but I had to go around the houses to get to there.

It normally takes me 25 to 30 minutes, so if I'd stopped to fill up and then taken that route I'd have been late to start my physio, so I thought 'just get to Wimbledon'. The club is surrounded by lots of petrol stations within two or three miles, so no problem.

But when I left that night there was so much traffic around the venue that I was stuck.

I had a back-up plan though - the petrol station I headed for is at the bottom of a hill, so I thought I could just roll down there and up to the pump if I needed to. That would have been quite a sight for anyone watching.

Luckily I made it there with one mile left in the tank, and I might fill it up a bit more than normal next week!

'I fancy my chances against Rafa - at putting'

Playing Monday, Wednesday, Friday means I get the weekend free, which can work both ways.

The other half of the draw get to play every other day throughout the tournament and pick up a good rhythm, on the other hand I have more time to catch up on the practice I missed in the week before Wimbledon.

I play Benoit Paire in the fourth round on Monday and he is another talented, tricky opponent. Like in the last round against Fabio Fognini, it will be our first meeting on grass.

That means plenty of time at the club working on my game, and there's another competition I've got my eye on.

I saw Rafa Nadal and his team trying a bit of golf before he went on to play his match on Friday, they had the putter out for a little bit of friendly competition.

I don't really play much golf and I know Rafa plays all the time, but putting is a very specific skill and I fancy my chances.

Maybe we'll line that one up for next week, why not?

Andy Murray was talking to BBC Sport's Piers Newbery