What we do in the winter

I was taught to play soon after we came to Wigley Orchard by Barbara, who still plays for our team.  Rob is also still with us – he and Barbara married, had a baby and divorced, and Barbara's new husband now plays for us too.  I remember my first league game – I was petrified, terrified of doing the wrong thing.  All the men in the opposing team seemed very old and serious.  It's different now – we play for fun and like to enjoy our evening out.

Crib teams seem to stay together for a very long time.  I don't think the Barneby Arms team has changed at all since we've been playing, and they greet us as old friends even though we only see them twice a year, home and away.  Last night I played against a man whose children were at the same school as mine.  They are all in their thirties now but we still ask each other about them.

One night we were playing for the Lion at Clifton against the Kings Arms while Alyson, one of our team, was in labour.  She'd been admitted to hospital in Worcester but had persuaded the doctor to let her out for her game of crib.  (You'd have to know Alyson to understand how she did that!)  So she played blithely on and won her game while the rest of us watched her anxiously for signs of distress and were quite unable to concentrate.  One of the Kings Arms team still asks me about her when we meet.  (Her baby, Robert, was born in the early hours of the next morning - he's 16 now.)

One of our ex-landladies, Louise, also went into labour on crib night, and every time the phone rang the whole team looked up anxiously in case there was any news.  I think we lost that game too.

Crib has its own language.  The object of the game is to make 31 as you play round the table, and so depending on which card you play to reach that magic number, you might say “two's in time” or “five's a fix” or “seven's a spree”.  If you have two pairs in your hand you have “Morgan's orchard” (two pairs, two pears, geddit?).  No one knows who poor Morgan was, but it was fascinating to hear our friend Joanne use the same expression when we played with her – she's a third generation New Zealander who learnt to play in Invercargill, at the bottom of the south island - about as far away from here as you can get!

Crib players always say, “you can only play the cards you are dealt” – which is a good metaphor for life, too.  But you can play them well or badly.  My current partner, another Louise, has been playing for about two years and I think she has played all her games with me except one.  It's interesting to see how her game has developed, how she's stopped doing silly things and started becoming a really competent player.  Still, as the boss says, it's only skill when you win – it's luck when you lose!

Last night we played a power cut at the Live & Let Live in Whitbourne meant playing by a flickering gas light and two tiny candles.  But we still won, and that's all that matters at the end of the night.  My opponent remarked on my smug expression and I apologised.  “That's OK,” he said.  “I'd look smug if I'd won.”