Southsea again, at Dan’s. This is a semi regular board game weekend. At the core, Dan (our host), Fluffy John, Stuart and I. I’ve known Dan and John consistently since 1987. I do have friends that go back further but I rarely if ever see them. So it makes this precious.
Dan was an incredibly important part of my growing up. I still know and love his family, his bonkers mum who is so like mine, his dad who immediately understood my dad and made friends with him. His brilliant straightforward brother. His delightful quick witted sister. Dan was my best friend at school and after the family haemorrhage, he is one of the only people in my life that knew both dad and mum well enough to have opinions and stories about them. That counts.
John also went to school with me, and his mum looked after our budgerigar one time. We were consistent friends from day one to the end. He’s a very very solid man, with nothing dishonest about him. His wife Mayumi gave me some invaluable recommendations for my Kumano Kodo, including sending me to the best fish meal I will ever eat in a minshuku in Kii-Katsuura.
Stuart fits. He’s Brian’s age, and an engineer. I like spending time with practical geeky people like this. Can’t vanish up the arsehole of theatre every day. Life is big.
Next week is gonna be confusing in terms of focus. I can partition it, and I will. But I’m aware that this weekend is my time to zone out so that’s what I’m doing. I’m in excellent company for such a practice.
Jules is here too this time, his wife. This helps. We are all capable of getting overexcited and either getting too drunk or staying up too late over the course of enjoying each others company.
I’d best get back to it. So far we have played: Mountaineers (very tactile, game not so well thought through). Then Chronicles of Crime where we solved a noir Hollywood murder. You need an app. It played well. Then Tiger and Dragon, which John brought from Japan and it didn’t have English instructions but it played extremely well, we were in the garden in the sun. Then Brink. Extremely involved. Somehow I won massively. Largely because none of us knew how it was scored and I specialised. Then Pairs as a quick one and Deep Sea Adventure where you just sabotage each other.
We are setting up “That’s a question”…
AlBarclay 