Monday 25th December 2006

Merry Christmas!

After a day of presents, food, chocolate, food, alcohol, snoozing, food, TV and a little more food followed by more alcohol Lisa and I decided to play some games.....what else is Christmas about?

Cara, Lisa's sister, joined us in a quick game of Diamant. We think she liked this, although complained that it sounded much more complicated how we explained it at the start than it actually was as you played it. As she won with 61 jewels to Paul's 60 and Lisa's disastrous 30, I don't know what she was complaining about!

Cara then departed to watch 'The Vicar of Dibley' (Lisa and I are not huge fans!). Instead Lisa and I played 3 quick games of Hey! That's My Fish! Of all the games I play regularly this is the one I find my neurological problems have most affected. I really struggle to play it. Not surprisingly Lisa won the first two games (59 fish to 41 and 63 fish to 37). I must stress though that she did play REALLY well in both games. She completely shut off most of the ice floes and mopped up the remaining fish. It reminded me at times of playing Connect Four as a child; remember when you were in the position that whichever side of the opponents line of three you went they were still going to get the fourth? It was just like that. She outmanouvered me repeatedly.

I clawed back some dignity in the third game by managing to block Lisa's blocking moves! It was fairly close as this was not a very good territory-grabbing approach but I held on to win with 57 fish to Lisa's 43.

We then had a go at Carcassonne - The Castle; clearly still our favourite game! This was an incredibly close game even though we were virtually almost playing at opposite ends of the board. Lisa won by 94 points to 91 - is that the closest game we've had? We were both happy with our performances and I certainly did not begrudge Lisa her victory. Given the amount of alcohol we had consumed by this point that we could even place the tiles was quite an achievement!

Worthy of note was that this game marked the inaugural use of the new BAG! This was fashioned for me as a Christmas present by my mother in law from the remains of a leg of my recently thrown away favourite pair of trousers! I deny rumours that my victory was due to Lisa's unease at being prompted to put her hand in my trousers every time it was her go!

Once 'The Vicar of Dibley' had finished Cara rejoined us and asked to play Diamant again. Lisa and I foolishly agreed and allowed ourselves to be whooped; Cara scored 62, Paul managed 39 and Lisa scraped along behind with 29 jewels. We then collapsed drunkenly in our beds having had a marvellous Christmas Day (apart form losing hideously at Diamant to someone who hadn't played it before. Mope, mope, mope!).