Yukky rain ... | Anna @ eCatsBridge

So - I left you last night to go out with Carol, but it turned out to be Carol, Marina and John & Adele Wignall, so the six of us headed across the road to The Melting Pot ... a fondue restaurant. They just managed to fit us in and we had a really great evening. The food was good, the wine was fine but the company was best ! One of the great joys of these Championships is meeting up with friends that we only see once a year and being with them and having fun and last night really epitomised it.

Not too early up this morning but woke to a grey dull day which got steadily greyer and duller with rain sweeping across, so Mark decided that trying to solve XML problems and things like that was better than going for a walk and taking photographs. I spent the day trying to arrange anti-doping tests - it only took me 15 phone calls !! And it still isn't fully sorted, but it looks as though we are getting there anyway.

The Mixed pairs finishes tonight - you can go to the links on my website for results etc, as I will be closed down before I know who won - the medal ceremony is at 8 and then we are going to a reception given by the ACBL and USBF to honour Jose Damiani (the WBF President) who will be stepping down at the end of this Championship after 16 years in office. I can't tell you how much I am going to miss him! Mind you he will still be around as Past President but even so it will be really strange ..

It is all quite silent here at the moment, as play is going on. Although our office is tucked round the corner, we are still aware of the rise in noise levels as the players arrive for the start of play and even more so when play finishes !

So what else. Not much of interest really. Our printer decided not to print anymore which was irritating but Harvey (the IT manager) dismantled and then re-mantled it and it stopped sulking and got on with the job. I fixed a template for appeals. I printed lots of papers for the Women's Committee Meeting on Thursday. alll rather uninteresting really. But interspersed by friends coming to the office to be social (or bring more work!) and the day flew by.

As I am sure tomorrow also will !

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Another day another dollar .. | Anna @ eCatsBridge

Last night we went out with Marina from Italy, and found that she had never been to a Hard Rock Café ! Fortunately there is one opposite the hotel so we were able to rectify this dreadful omission and had a really enjoyable evening with her. I haven't forgotten my promise of photographs of my colleagues, but there just hasn't been time today to do anything about it ...

The day started all too early when we found ourselves wide awake at 05.30 ... NOT what I had in mind I can assure you. Got bored quite quickly so decided to get up and head for the shower followed by Starbucks for breakfast! Went to the office to try and fix the XML files that we send to the EBU (with a marked lack of success I might say, thanks to Microsoft having done something very very strange to the security settings! Then my wretched email decided to stop working and it took a long battle before Mark found the right magic wand to get going again ... what a start to the day !! So much for our intention of getting lots of work done in the peace and quiet before anyone else arrived. Never mind - maybe tomorrow :-)

Anyway, after that it was all fairly hectic with people in and out of the office all day discussing different aspects of the Championships, the future, the programme, the meeting of congress etc etc etc.

Carol has had the photocopier going all day, getting the papers ready for the Executive Meetings ... I think it was about ready to disappear in a puff of blue smoke by the end of the day, but hopefully it will have cooled down before tomorrow when it will doubtless get another work-out !

We managed to escape for a short while at lunch time and headed for Reading Market again - it really is great there as you can choose from so many different types of foods! We had a taste of "Gator Gumbo" but decided to stick with Jambalaya for Mark and Creole Chicken for me, while the others found a very nice salad bar! Mental note was made though to find something much lighter tomorrow so that we can sample some of the wonderful flavours of icecream that you can get !

Now it is the evening and time to shut the machine down and head off with Carol for a glass of red and then dinner.

More tomorrow ....

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