With record high temperatures, one club took to playing bridge outdoors!

Extreme temperatures have prompted a west Suffolk village bridge club to resort to extreme measures to escape the heat – by playing outdoors in the dark.

Rather than meet as normal inside Stansfield village hall at their regular Tuesday and Thursday evening sessions, members set up on the playing field outside.

When the light started to fade players produced torches, iPhones and, in one case, head lamps to provide the necessary illumination. Here is the group at 10pm. More pictures here and here.

“Playing bridge outdoors is something of a rarity, probably because there is always the danger a breeze will scatter Dummy’s card to the four winds,” Richard Evans, the club chairman, said. “Inside our village hall was stiflingly hot this week, so the relative cool of outdoors was delightful and meant we could enjoy the game. On the second evening, two members went to the trouble of providing portable outdoor lights and a gazebo with interior lighting and we played as thunder and lightning rumbled not that far away.”

July 26, 2019