Bridge Bash

WARNING! Those of you who have no interest in bridge should probably just skip this blog entry to avoid being bored silly.

This is a very bad picture of Betty, my Saturday partner.
I love her Scottish accent and warm personality.

Playing duplicate bridge here is similar to playing in Fort Collins even though most folks are playing ACOL instead of Standard American. We play in a church just like our Fun Bridge Club but this church is very modern and open, a converted warehouse. Membership costs $50 per year and saves you a dollar or two on the table fees, $3 for regular games and $5 on red point days for members. We have up to 72 people playing and it is a diverse group aged 40 to 97. There are folks from Singapore, India, England, Scotland, Italy, Croatia, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and another American, my other semi-regular partner, Janice.

Janice is a very good player and is trying
to teach me some new tricks.

Daphne (center) is our oldest player at 97 and is a
formidable opponent and amusing companion. Her daughter,
Maureen (left), brings her and they sometimes play as partners.

Instead of using bidding boxes, they use a pen and paper and everyone writes their bids down in turn. This can be extremely challenging if you can't read your partner's writing. My partner, Betty, ended up putting me in a 6C slam bid because she thought my S was a C! Of course, I couldn't quit laughing the whole time I played it.

Meet Chris, our unflappable director on Saturdays.
Gotta love his festive shirt!

The other difference is they use all kinds of complicated movements instead of having North and South stay in place and rotating the EW pairs. I usually just follow my partner who seems to be able to interpret the choreography. Once I played with Cliff, who was as clueless as I. We both had to laugh - it was like the Keystone Cops. Since neither of us was used to their scoring system, we traded the honors, which we later found out was a big no-no.

John and Moira, the club champions, are a delightful pair.
John is a psychiatrist and Moira was a psychiatric nurse
so George has a lot in common with them too.

The Fremantle Bridge Club group have been warm and welcoming despite my lack of bridge prowess. I have been very generous to our opponents lately. Yesterday, I went down spectacularly by 1400 points. I'm surprised my regular partners haven't fired me. They are both very patient and generous ladies.

I am now card-carrying member of the Australian Bridge Federation. My goal for the rest of my stay is to become a graduate and to obtain the two master points needed for that. I think I can do it if I play with Janice enough. She is a very good player and does extremely well as long as I don't do anything silly. Actually, I don't care about the points but think it sounds like an innocuous New Year's resolution, much easier than losing weight!

Players relax during the holiday party,
enjoying their wine and visiting.

I love the hominess of the group. Doreen sells her homemade jam, which is outstanding. Jeanette brings in fresh farm eggs and Maureen has been bringing in juicy apricots. We always have tea breaks with bikkies (cookies to you) but occasionally we also get Margie's special profiteroles and other homemade goodies. There is usually a weekly raffle for chocolates and the money goes toward the club parties and to charity.

Marion gets into the spirit of the season.

Club president, Margie, and Di prepare the feast.

John volunteers for bar-tending duties. After the game,
many stay for $1 glasses of wine or pop
and some snacks and to socialize.

Malcolm, like everyone else in this group,
doesn't let his physical limitations interfere with bridge.
He and David toast to another year of fun.

As much as I enjoy this, I miss my regular Biddies bridge and other social bridge. I hope the Chalkie (that's Strine for teacher) group that Barb hosts will still have a place for me next summer when we get back. I am trying to organize a foursome to play Christmas Day since George will be working. May all of you have grand slam holidays!

Small World Stories Continue

Waiting for the CAT bus this week, I noticed a little girl trip and fall over the curb. As a confirmed klutz myself, my heart went out to her. When she came to sit at the bench with her mother and sister, I asked if she was OK. You could tell this was no wimpy child - she wiped away her tears and gave me a 1000 kilowatt smile.

When her mother asked if I was American, I could tell she was too. After the usual, "Where are you from in the States?" and finding out they are from California, we moved onto "Where do you live?". It not only turns out they live on the next street (down from Ada Rose's) but lived at our place when they first came to town. It would probably be an interesting book to chronicle the stories of all the folks who stay here. Upstairs, Downstairs sounds like a good title but I think that's been used before. : )

Like us, they were less than thrilled with the accommodations but love Rose. When their shipment didn't come when they were ready to move to their new place, Rose lent them dishes and other kitchen things to tide them over.

Speaking of shipments, ours is still in Sydney, awaiting AQIS clearance. Now they are telling us that the AQIS folks are off until after the first of the year. It's so frustrating since it was shipped on July 29! If we'd known it would take this long, we wouldn't have bothered shipping anything. Oh well, I guess it's just a lesson in learning to live without the things one thinks one has to have.