A beautiful Greek island; a warm sea; delicious al fresco dinners; and bridge from morning till night with Andrew Robson. Pure fantasy? Actually, it pretty much sums up my past week. I was lucky enough to be invited by Charlie and Carol Skinner to Paxos for seven days of rubber bridge, in honour of our friend Stuart Wheeler, who died two years ago. There were 12 of us, and the stakes were high (£20 per hundred). It is, of course, a huge privilege to play with Andrew, and we all love it. But it’s not without stress. When we partner him, we’re desperate not to let him down. The pressure shows: poor Andrew often gets us at our worst. I doubt there has ever been a group of players who spent so much time apologising.

My own worst blunders arose during ‘Goulash’ deals (where, if the bidding stops at the 1-level, the cards are re-dealt in groups of 5-5-3 to produce extreme distributions). Too many high-level decisions! I’m still kicking myself over this hand:

Andrew doubled. Should I bid 7♣? It might have been more sensible: his double was for take-out, however odd that seems at the 6-level. As it happens, pass was a good decision. But then I panicked about what to lead. As Andrew explained later, there’s only one safe lead – a trump. If declarer has 11 diamonds, you want to stick him in his hand, not risk giving him an entry to dummy. I found the only lead to let it through: a spade. Away went one of declarer’s clubs on the ♠A, followed by a swift claim. Aarrgh!