Diamond Bridge prize giving and Greek dancing to end with

Our last night at the Hotel Esperides consisted of the prize giving and drinks, communal dinner followed by a short one hour bridge session which was not to be taken seriously together with liquors and ending with a lovely performance of Greek dancing.  Almost everyone got up to join in the dancing and it was really very nice evening on which to end this wonderful holiday.  Skiathos is a very compact island but with many walks available to Andrew and he thoroughly explored the terrain all over.

This is me doing an imitation of Dame Edna.  I purchased these magnificent glasses with my last event's winnings.  As well as presenting winners with trophies, Mike and Carol also give out tokens for coming first in the bridge events and you can either cash these, use them towards your next holiday. or purchase things from the display table.

Photos of some of the winners.  Anne and Jeremy Dodd won one of the pairs' events

Chris Kennedy won the Diamond trophy.  In this event you play four sessions with different partners and your two top events count.

Alan and Diane Dean who are good players and Diamond Bridge tragics.  They have been to over 40 Diamond Bridge holidays.  I have to say, if we lived in the UK or somewhere closer, we would also be Diamond Bridge tragics.  Mike and Carol put on an excellent holiday, with bridge 😃

This year has been an incredibly successful one for us bridge-wise.  We won both teams events, the Grecian Teams with Sonja and Paul Mayfield

and also the Skiathos Teams with Bob and Margaret Mackie.  We thoroughly enjoyed playing with both couples.  It was exciting to win one teams event and then to win the other one as well was just amazing.

And then, to top it all, I won the New Partnership Pairs with Birte Ditchburn.  I had arranged to play with someone else who had double booked herself and Birte and I came together after that.  This event you have to play with someone with whom you had not played with during the fortnight of bridge.  Both Andrew and I played with a lot of people on this holiday, sometimes Acol and sometimes Standard.  It is good to be able to play both systems which opens up possibilities for new partners.

The evening continued with some Greek dancing.

The spectacular fire circle where one of the talented young men danced inside the circle.

The audience enjoying the show.

The enthusiastic bridge players getting up to dance.






It was a marvelous ending to a wonderful fortnight.  We feel we have made new friends and enjoyed the company of lovely people.  And we played a lot of bridge.  This time, pretty successfully.

Now we are slowly heading homeward but first, a night's stopover in Athens.  Two days in Helsinki and then a week in Chicago visiting Tonja and Matt.

At long last, we were able to taste the kumquat liquor that has been recommended as a Greek specialty.  I asked everywhere and it was not available.  On our last night here in Greece were are able to sample it, thanks to the driver at the Varaba Guest House where we are staying near the airport in Athens.  I mentioned it to him and he had a bottle which he brought along with our dinner.  It is nice.