Wednesday 3rd September 2025

I went to high school at the height of punk. I loved the music, but to fit in I said I loved ELO.

In fact I loved ELO and punk. And disco. And lots more.

I can't remember who it was in my group of friends who taught us Bridge, but our form of rebellion was to retire to the physics labs and play very poor bridge.

It was there one afternoon that our form tutor, Mr Skeats, found us. And said that if we were going to play bridge, we had better learn the basics.

So, one lunchtime a week, he gave up his free time to teach us how to play. Slightly better.

We even invented a form of the game when there was just three of us, so keen were we to play this. Bridge surpassed Dungeons and Dragons as our game of choice.

Fast forward a decade and I joined the Royal Air Force, and games were an important part once basic and trade training were completed. We had an hour for lunch, and crew rooms were echo to the sound of dice being rolled for Uckers, or cards being dealt as played Hunt (Chase the Lady), Nom or Bridge.

Bridge requires four people who know how to play, and getting four in the sections I worked in whilst serving in the RAF was quite easy.

Outside of that, it proved to be impossible.

Almost.

One holiday in the Scottish Borders at a farm house, an Army Major his wife and son asked me to join in Bridge, and his withering comments to his wife as another contract crashed and burned stay with me to this day.

So. I can play bridge to an simple "rough" standard, but have not been able to play in the twenty years since I left the services in 2005.

And then a mail went out in our U3A group, that places in the Bridge group were open, so I applied and got in. They don't teach from scratch, but said they would be kind.

Bridge is a form of Whist wit "knobs on". A bidding phase before a card is played, helps inform your partner what you have in your hand, what they have in theirs, and for you to form a contract to make X many tricks with a suit as trumps or no trumps as a fifth choice.

Once the contract is made, the game is then like Whist, only that the person who made the contract plays both hands, with their partner laying their hand down on the table for all the see as a "dummy".

Scully vanished, so the plan to test her blood sugars every hour went out the window. Again. Tomorrow she will be shut in the porch so not to miss the tests.

Which meant I could go to the bridge, and Jools could go to her keep fit, hair cut and other appointments.

I dropped her off in town at eight. School run and rush hour are back, though Dover's own version of it. We made it just in time.

I drive back along Reach Road so to avoid the traffic at the Duke of York's roundabout, and because it would be pleasant.

Or would have been had the sun been shining and the wind not already touching 40 mp/h.

It was good to get home. make a brew and have breakfast. But already it was nearing time to leave.

The club usually have at least two tables going, and meets in member's houses. I have not been in many houses that have room for two tables in one room, not without removing all the furniture first.

This weeks host lives near Walmer Castle, so not far to drive, and traffic had died down by nine.

I was first to arrive, the host showed me in, and I saw at least one in the house was a photographers with prints covering two walls with at least four decades of shots.

The other six arrived, we shook hands as we were introduced. My brain immediately dump the names in the trash can, never to be recalled. But the host was called Yoko, and found I had no trouble remembering that.

Rules were gone over, and the plan for the day. Pre-dealt hands, bidding boxes showing the history for each game, and two tables, four chairs at each.

I remembered some, and won the first hand I won the bidding for, but later made a miscounting error on another.

So it goes.

Jools texts me to say she is on a train heading to Walmer, I reply that she get off at Martin Mill, and as the school was breaking up anyway, I made my excuses and left.

Doing a three point turn in the road, back onto the main road and the few miles through Ringwould to the crossroads, then down the hill to Martin Mill.

Three minutes later the train rolled in, and Jools got off.

Into the car and up the hill, crossing the Deal Road to home. Feed the cats and then think about dinner: Cornish pasties straight out of the wrapper with a big fresh brew.

The wind blew, clouds fled across the sky, but the four hours of thunder and lightning once again failed to happen. No matter how hard we stared at the storm radar.

I make fajitas again, as they went down so well last time, and as it was a booze day, poured one of the new beers: the Imperial Blond, and how well it went with the spicy food.

Again no football, just the wind dropping, but still blowing enough to make the curtains billow and knock the phone out of its cradle.