The Bluney is a teams competition organised by Ken Pattison of the English Bridge Union, for Universities and Guest Teams from the North of England (and Edinburgh). There are usually three rounds each year, with the winner the team that does best over all three meetings. This year we missed Round One but sent a team to Harogate for Round Two.

The Edinburgh team was Danny-Anna and Cyp-Adrianna.

After complaining of bridge fatigue at previous events Anna reccommended that we play no bridge on the (three and a half hour) train journey, at least until we were nearly there when Cyp insisted on a couple of warm up hands. We arrived an hour early, foolish given it was already an early start, but in plenty of time to carefully pick a poor pub to eat lunch in.

There were nine teams there altogether; three Durham University, one Durham Alumni, two Leeds, two Harrogate and us. We played each team in a four board match. Towards the end of the first half of the day I became extremely tired and started to lose the plot. Even following the table movements became very difficult. My slump was exacerbated by an accidentally drinking a cup of Earl Grey green tea - a ridiculous beverage.

When the halfway break finally came I found that the team was actually doing quite well, so I resolved not to drag us down in the second half. There were a few cavalier contracts however - the low point when I misbid and inadvertently promised five hearts and five spades. Anna picked spades as trumps (I had only two of them in fact), and raised me to game. We stumbled out into a five diamonds contract, with a miracle ten card fit. It made, doubled.

When the time came to score up Cyp-Adrianna seemed confident. The final results were:

1	Edinburgh	+96 IMPs
2	Durham A	+76 IMPs
3	Durham Alumnni	+60 IMPs

A famous win. Afterwards we hurried to the supermarket to get food for the train home. Anna let the whole team down by not buying any olives. A couple of photos from the journey: