As I started to write this, it was blowing a HOWLING gale, the windows are rattling and the draughts are amazing !! But I am cosy with the fire on, so all is well :-). Now it is just wet, wet, wet but never mind.
Now what news - well, lots of news, mainly about Philadelphia and the World Bridge Series next October - it is being held from 1st - 16th October and every bridge player should try and join us there - this is the BIG one and is going to be an amazing event, with many different Championship events and the ACBL regional alongside. Don't leave it too long before booking your hotel rooms, because they are going to fill up very quickly as the WBF has managed to get excellent rates (and fabulous playing conditions !)
Philadelphia looks amazing too - I saw the promotional DVD and just can't wait to go there and experience it all. So just go to my website and you will find all the details there - click here!
Of course, we are only just beyond the wonderful World Teams Championship in Brazil - I can't tell you want a wonderful job Ernesto d'Orsi did there, it was a truly truly memorable event. There are a number of documents and bulletins available from this event - you can click here to find them.
Our own ECatsBridge for Children in Need Sim Pairs is coming up soon - the usual 5 days of it (I must be off my trolley!). Do join us if you can. I will put the club lists up as soon as I can, probably next week, so you can find a club to play at. All the details will be in the Sims section on the website.
More in due course ....
anna
Friday, 9 October 2009
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Home Safe .. normal service will be resumed shortly!
We are home safe ! The Championships rounded off with one of the best Victory Banquets ever, and we danced the night away with a great band playing many of the old favourites! Enormous fun...
Sunday was a loooooooong day, as we had to wait until 11.45 pm for our flight, which was on time thank goodness, and returned us safely to London where we landed at 3.15 and finally got back to our Railway Station around 6 pm. Time to unpack, have a glass of wine and a nice risotto and head for bed. Mark has woken with the "Championship Sore Throat" this morning. Every Championship produces some bug or other and this one is not nice ... even Mark Horton lost his voice for three days ! So I am expecting "my" Mark to be languishing for the rest of the week, and just keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get it. Anyway, I woke about 10.30 and am now going to try and catch up with my email etc.
And, of course, keep an eye on the EBU Simultaneous Pairs which is running today and tomorrow!
Watch this space for future blogs, won't you - not quite daily but I will try and update regularly!
Sunday was a loooooooong day, as we had to wait until 11.45 pm for our flight, which was on time thank goodness, and returned us safely to London where we landed at 3.15 and finally got back to our Railway Station around 6 pm. Time to unpack, have a glass of wine and a nice risotto and head for bed. Mark has woken with the "Championship Sore Throat" this morning. Every Championship produces some bug or other and this one is not nice ... even Mark Horton lost his voice for three days ! So I am expecting "my" Mark to be languishing for the rest of the week, and just keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get it. Anyway, I woke about 10.30 and am now going to try and catch up with my email etc.
And, of course, keep an eye on the EBU Simultaneous Pairs which is running today and tomorrow!
Watch this space for future blogs, won't you - not quite daily but I will try and update regularly!
Saturday, 12 September 2009
all over bar the shouting
As I type this, USA 2 are 45 IMPs ahead with one board to play, so ... they have beaten Italy and won the Bermuda Bowl !
And that's it ... all over until next time !
It's been a great Championship - lots of exciting bridge or so they tell me .. I only watched the nail biting ending of the Seniors yesterday, and a few boards at the end of the Bermuda Bowl but I know a lot of people have had a great deal of enjoyment and excitement and that's brilliant!
Thank you to the many of you who have followed my blog ... don't forget me, as I will update it in future, not just at the Championships, so keep an eye out for future information.
Look after yourselves - we start the long journey back to England tomorrow and I will be in the office when I re-surface :-)
Goodbye, and, as they say ... thanks for all the fish
anna
And that's it ... all over until next time !
It's been a great Championship - lots of exciting bridge or so they tell me .. I only watched the nail biting ending of the Seniors yesterday, and a few boards at the end of the Bermuda Bowl but I know a lot of people have had a great deal of enjoyment and excitement and that's brilliant!
Thank you to the many of you who have followed my blog ... don't forget me, as I will update it in future, not just at the Championships, so keep an eye out for future information.
Look after yourselves - we start the long journey back to England tomorrow and I will be in the office when I re-surface :-)
Goodbye, and, as they say ... thanks for all the fish
anna
Friday, 11 September 2009
oh fantastic
What a marvellous few moments :-)
The English Seniors team has just won the World Seniors Championship AND the Chinese Women's team has just won the Venice Cup ! How exciting is that ? Here are the Senior Team - from the left, David Price, Paul Hackett, Coli Simpson, Peter Baxter (NPC) Gunner Hallberg, John Holland and Ross Harper. What a great bunch of guys (and they were all very huggable tonight !)
The EBU Press Release about the team can be found by clicking here
The English Seniors team has just won the World Seniors Championship AND the Chinese Women's team has just won the Venice Cup ! How exciting is that ? Here are the Senior Team - from the left, David Price, Paul Hackett, Coli Simpson, Peter Baxter (NPC) Gunner Hallberg, John Holland and Ross Harper. What a great bunch of guys (and they were all very huggable tonight !)
The EBU Press Release about the team can be found by clicking here
I have just been drinking Champagne in the Press Room courtesy of Ross Harper (thank you so much Ross) .... it was great to see the English Seniors Win - David Price said that now he knows what it feels like he would like to do it again :-)
As for the Chinese Women's team - that is very special - they have been "up there" so many times and, indeed, lost to the English women by just 1 (yes ONE ) IMP last year in Beijing, but have never one a World Championship, so tonight's win creates four Grand Masters at a stroke and I am so very happy for them.
So ... just excellent. And we still have the Bermuda Bowl Final to be resolved ... all so exciting ... and Mark is better too, so life is good :-)
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Getting there ...
Last night I was taken out to a Churrasco restaurant, which was really amazing - it was great fun and we had a lovely evening. Sadly Mark isn't very well, so didn't come with us - he is still in bed today, languishing which is a real shame but I am sure he will be OK tomorrow ..
This morning sees the last of the Executive Meetings, where they consider the minutes from all the committee meetings that have been held during the week. I have a meeting at 2 to look at a new bridge teaching site and consider how best to translate it to English and publish it, then "the boss" wants to go through some photographs with me, to choose some for a book about the WBF.
I suspect tonight will be a nice quiet one - maybe just room service - and an early night ! I could certainly do with one ...
This morning sees the last of the Executive Meetings, where they consider the minutes from all the committee meetings that have been held during the week. I have a meeting at 2 to look at a new bridge teaching site and consider how best to translate it to English and publish it, then "the boss" wants to go through some photographs with me, to choose some for a book about the WBF.
I suspect tonight will be a nice quiet one - maybe just room service - and an early night ! I could certainly do with one ...
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
getting calmer
Mark made a video of the storm we had yesterday and has posted it on Youtube ... with apologies for the expletive in the middle!
Much quieter here today - no sun, but not raining either .
Had a meeting this morning about all the technical stuff for Philadelphia ... it is going to be a very big event indeed (do join us !) and will be brilliant, but it does mean that the technical side is going to be very complex without doubt. I have - like a good girl - typed up notes from the meeting, and now am waiting for another meetng, this time with Anna Maria Torlontano, Chairman of our Women's Committee, to make sure we know what we have to do when we get home! It is funny how it goes really ...you start a Championship and two and a half weeks loom ahead, so you seem to have masses of time to get things done, meetings held, decisions made. Then you get to this point, with just 3 days to go and starting thinking "oh ***** I haven't talked to xx about this", or discussed this point with members of that committee and so forth, and now everything goes into major panic mode !
We are delighted this year though - with the excellent organisation done by Ernesto d'Orsi, and the way the event is run, we don't have the responsibility for the Victory Banquet - everyone is invited, and all the teams and delegations have to do is to confirm to the Brazilian Hospitality team that they will be there. Such bliss after the normal hectic rush to get tickets out to the right people and so forth.
Carol and I have the task now of ensuring that all the documents from the meetings are put onto a memory stick for each member of the Executive - that's quite simple really but we still have a number to scan in, so I guess I had better go and get on with it !
More tomorrow ....
Much quieter here today - no sun, but not raining either .
Had a meeting this morning about all the technical stuff for Philadelphia ... it is going to be a very big event indeed (do join us !) and will be brilliant, but it does mean that the technical side is going to be very complex without doubt. I have - like a good girl - typed up notes from the meeting, and now am waiting for another meetng, this time with Anna Maria Torlontano, Chairman of our Women's Committee, to make sure we know what we have to do when we get home! It is funny how it goes really ...you start a Championship and two and a half weeks loom ahead, so you seem to have masses of time to get things done, meetings held, decisions made. Then you get to this point, with just 3 days to go and starting thinking "oh ***** I haven't talked to xx about this", or discussed this point with members of that committee and so forth, and now everything goes into major panic mode !
We are delighted this year though - with the excellent organisation done by Ernesto d'Orsi, and the way the event is run, we don't have the responsibility for the Victory Banquet - everyone is invited, and all the teams and delegations have to do is to confirm to the Brazilian Hospitality team that they will be there. Such bliss after the normal hectic rush to get tickets out to the right people and so forth.
Carol and I have the task now of ensuring that all the documents from the meetings are put onto a memory stick for each member of the Executive - that's quite simple really but we still have a number to scan in, so I guess I had better go and get on with it !
More tomorrow ....
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
A real doozy ...
of a storm is raging around us at the moment ... thunder, lightening and torrential rain! It looks like the middle of the night it is so dark ! I confess to loving storms and almost wish I could go out in it - would be drenched in seconds but it would be fun !
Anyway, we finally got the transnationals going last night, about 68 teams I believe, and the semi finals are safely under way as well, so the tension is building! All the sub committees are meeting this week, and we are getting to work on stuff for the next Championship - Philadelphia 2010. You can find information about it by clicking here
well, I started this early on today, but then got involved in doing other things - in the meantime the weather cleared and the sun almost came out but now we are having another torrential downpour - including INSIDE the corridor to our office !!
Not much else to say really - maybe something exciting will happen tomorrow :-)
Anyway, we finally got the transnationals going last night, about 68 teams I believe, and the semi finals are safely under way as well, so the tension is building! All the sub committees are meeting this week, and we are getting to work on stuff for the next Championship - Philadelphia 2010. You can find information about it by clicking here
well, I started this early on today, but then got involved in doing other things - in the meantime the weather cleared and the sun almost came out but now we are having another torrential downpour - including INSIDE the corridor to our office !!
Not much else to say really - maybe something exciting will happen tomorrow :-)
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