It's a Pink Poodle Day !!

It started as a reasonably calm day which made a nice change ! Mind you I didn't sleep brilliantly but that's another story, so calm was definitely good !

Last night we went to a dinner hosted by Gianarrigo Rona, the President Elect, who will take over from José Damiani at the end of the Championships. It was a very enjoyable evening, and we had a super table, with lovely Paul Porteous and his wife Maureen, who are here to see how it all works in the hope of bidding to hold the event in four years time (fingers crossed !). Marina (Gianarrigo's PA) was with us, as was Carol, plus Mark Horton (Bulletin Editor), Brent Manley (Chief Bulletin Editor) and Ron Tacchi, all of whom are great value at a dinner - noisy and fun !!

Anna, Marina & Carol

from left Seated: Cippi Rona, José Damiani & Monique Damiani
Standing : Jimmy Ortiz Patino and Gianarrigo Rona

Gianarrigo Rona, President Elect, and his wife Cippi

Anyway, here are some pictures that you may find amusing - the one of the three of us here is me on the left, Marina in the middle and Carol on the right. Another set of Graces !! or witches depending on your point of view.

So .. back to this morning, it got a bit fraught as lunchtime approached, probably because people were getting hungry and a bit ratty ! Anyway, finally I got the bits and bobs done and Mark got me out of the door and out of the hotel to my great relief. He had discovered that there was a street party/fair happing nearby and we had great fund wandering down to it, and going through looking at all the stalls, and the people on their soap boxes sounding off about various things ! The mural was the side of a building that I saw, and it was just amazing !

The amazing mural

As we continued we came across a couple of people with their dogs ... and as you can see, they had poodles, and dye their hair ! Hence it is a Pink Poodle Day !

Pink Poodles'R'Us !

Ton & Annellie

Wandering further on we came across Ton Kooijman, who was the WBF Operations Director for many years, together with his lovely wife Annelie, enjoying cheese and wine in the sunshine. We thought of joining them, but weren't really ready to eat at that point, so wandered yet further before stopping at a French style bistro for a light lunch - yummy crepes with a salad and a glass of white wine, sitting in a pavement cafe in the sunshine. Most enjoyable !

Sadly it was then back to work. Mark spent the morning going off to a museum he particularly wants to visit ... an archaeological one, but after a long walk arrived to find it closes on Sundays ! hence his return to take me out for lunch (for which I was extremely grateful I may say). So this afternoon he decided he hadn't been educated enough so he went off to the Franklin Institute where they have a Cleopatra Exhibition which he enjoyed. I had a reasonably peaceful afternoon, preparing the papers for the Press Conference tomorrow, where we have Phil Gordon (who won over $2 million playing online poker ! ) and the Astronaut Col. Gregory Johnson coming to talk about poker, space shuttles and bridge ! Apparently Greg Johnson took an ace of spades on the last shuttle with him !! If you want to read the Press Release about it all, it is linked from the front page on www.ecatsbridge.com