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Saturday 18 September 2021

Card Tables



Yesterday evening and this morning we’ve been amusing Granddaughter by playing a game called Ding. It’s a card game where you aim to make tricks and move pieces around a simple circular board depending on how many tricks you made. A good game to play with youngsters because they pick it up easily and each game doesn’t last too long.

Because of increasingly creaky knees we decided we'd had enough of playing the game on the rug. Instead we rigged up a low card table from a stool and a couple of chairs. It worked well enough, saved the knees and reminded me of my parents’ card table from the days when families still amused themselves without the aid of electronics. Their card table was a simple folding affair with wooden legs and a green baize top. At one time such tables must have been made in vast quantities.

In those days, Mum and Dad would sometimes have a contract bridge evening with a couple of friends or relatives. Those evenings I still recall quite vividly because of the tobacco smoke and hot dogs served afterwards. We were used to the tobacco smoke and hot dogs were a real treat.

There are still plenty of old card tables to be found on the antiques market, some Victorian examples being both impressive to look at and perfectly usable today. Not that we’d ever buy one. The stool will have to do.

4 comments:

Sam Vega said...

Let's hope that Granddaughter can one day reflect on the antiques for sale that remind her of you. Mouse mats? Old laptops? Alexa? Those funny little LED lights that people briefly used in the early 2000s to light their homes? Old Local Authority "recycling bins" (now suitable for planters)?

Mac said...

A K Haart,

"Their card table was a simple folding affair with wooden legs and a green baize top."
Mention of those card tables made for a night of little sleep as memories came flooding back.
I can see it now, right down to the folding legs secured by little springs and clips.

Andy5759 said...

...memories came flooding back.

Me too. We had two favourite card games, using special packs. Summit and Lexicon. Summit comprised cards with £SD values, very helpful in teaching children how to add up quickly. Lexicon was an early card version of Scrabble, without a board. We also played a game called Cheat, the idea being to end up with no cards in hand. To my shame I was good at it. Ludo, snakes and ladders, dice, monopoly, and table tennis on the dining table - flaps out. Another world.

A K Haart said...

Sam - or diy garden swing made without official risk assessment or duty of care authorisation. Granddaughter loves it.

Mac - I saw one in an antiques centre not so long ago. Amazing how something so simple brings back the memories.

Andy - we still have a pack of Lexicon cards. Grandson likes to play and I've introduced him to table tennis on the dining table. He likes that too.