Patience

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The Fairview Cards & Cribbage Board

A pretty gloomy afternoon here, awaiting the forecast storm, although it's pretty calm at the moment. Having posted the Deck of the Week earlier made me think of another pack of cards in my collection that I've had for well over fifty years. This was a deck that we used to use at Fairview in Fromes Hill when I was a child and the one I learnt to play Patience with. I still have the crib board that we used there, too. My nan was a mad keen Whist player and taught us to play and it's still one of my favourite card games to this day. The crib board dates back to the 'Twenties, the cards I'm not sure about: you can still see the cigarette burns on the box - just about everyone smoked in those days.

A curious and forgotten fact came out yesterday when Jane was on Facebook. My Great Aunt Clara, who was a nun in a nursing order and a very fine and kind woman, used to love a game of Patience and always carried a battered old pack of cards wherever she went. I just thought I'd share that small recollection in the absence of any desire whatsoever to engage in political comment today. It's too depressing to keep banging one's head against the keyboard in anger. Normal service will be resumed after a short intermission.

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