The Long and Winding Road

We have been in England for two weeks now with just a few days left.  I will have lots more to say but here are a few highlights.  The first awesome thing that happened is that Shireen and Andy not only provided us with wonderful accomodations but when Ray (temporarily) lost his drivers license they offered to lend us their car for almost two weeks.  Tell me that bridge players are not the best friends.  There are no people like bridge people ….

We are hoping that they will take us up on our offer to stay at our house this summer for the Toronto NABC.

We had a terrific time in London and Shireen assures me that the ukelele is the instument of the future.  She has convinced me to try barbu.  You will hear more about barbu soon.

We met a bridge ephemera collector in London, Peter Hasenson, and spent quite a while looking at his wonderful collection.  I have many pictures and I will talk about Peter later.  He has a wonderful collection of bridge books, hundreds of pictures from long ago and many interesting items.  He may have the best such collection in the world.

We spent lots of time with Mark and Liz Horton attending their wedding where Tacchi (photographer of many world championships) was their photographer and made a speech on behalf of the groom.  Brent Manley witnessed the marriage certificate and Ray took charge of the rings.  The wedding seemed to go on for several days one way and another.  Liz was radiant and I will have to post a picture when I get home.  Brent and Donna and Ray and I spent a couple of days with the newly weds after the wedding.

Ray, Mark and I headed to Wales to watch the Buffett Cup in person.  Again I have some pictures.  It was fun to say hello to everyone and hear the Lord Mayor’s welcoming speech.  The place was lovely but there were only a handful of spectators in the Vugraph room, which was no surprise really.  Mark did the initial commentary but the position was strictly voluntary which means there will no doubt be many people coming in to contribute a session or two.

I don’t find the format easy to watch and it was hard to follow or understand the scoring in the Vugraph room.  They will need to think about a better way of presenting it in future.

In terms of site seeing I have a long list of great stuff including a surrealist exhibition in London Shireen organized along with the stones of Avebury and an expensive visit to a Moorcraft pottery factory where I was so inpressed by the way they hand crafted their creation that I had to send one home.

Thanks so much to Mark and Liz and Shireen and Andy who went so far beyond normal hospitality to make our trip wonderful.