Another day in paradise

Niagara Falls

Surprise! When I woke up this morning it was already past 9:30. That's the first time I have overslept here in York. I suppose in a way this is a good sign, as it must mean that I am feeling comfortable here. It certainly also means that my conversion to English winter time is now complete.

Well, to be honest, yesterday's pints might have something to do with this; but at least there is no comparison with last week, though I imagine that some of my readers who noticed the prolonged absence of Friday's writeup might have thought so.

Since I still had some shopping to do and actually had intended to be at the Bar Convent from 10:00 onwards for another bout of board games, any plans I might have had of first catching up on my blog went straight out of the window. It takes me an hour on average to write one of these posts, no way that I would allow that time to come out of my game playing budget.

Clearly I am settling into a routine here. There are several sides to this. It saves me a lot of time for one thing: I no longer have to think hard about which type of bread or butter I want (literally!). On the other hand, I feel sort of obliged to keep trying out new things, to make the most of my stay here. Feeling adventurous, this morning I therefore bought English peanut butter (no Calvé to be found!) as well as eggs, to create some variety in my breakfast, and bananas next to the Cox apples I already sung my praises of. (Still no buttermilk though, witness of the fact that there are limits to my adventurousness.)

Actually baking eggs will have to wait a bit longer, until the time I have also remembered to buy oil or butter... although as I'm writing this I seem to remember having seen olive oil in one of the cupboards... and YES, it's there! Tomorrow, fried eggs and ham! Lovely! Let no one say that writing a blog serves no purpose!

In the end it was almost noon before I made it to Beyond Monopoly! The first game that was open for another player to join was in fact Kingdom Builder, which is funny because it was also the last game I played in Essen last Sunday. (Seems a lot longer ago than six days.) I can truthfully say I played this two times in a row! As far as I'm concerned, it's definitely a winner: quick, varied, nice game board, well-balanced.

I won't go though the whole list, but there were two new games I learned that are also keepers. The first was The Resistance, a Werewolves-or Saboteur-type game in which the players are divided into two groups, generically the good guys (the majority) and the bad guys (a minority). The bad guys know one another but the good guys are completely in the dark. The main purpose of the good guys is to find out who the bad guys are, in the course of the gameplay which slowly reveals information, not always easy to interpret; the purpose of the bad guys is obviously to sabotage this process. This involves a lot of argumentation and double-talk, good fun when done well, as it was today. The game is definitely better than either Werewolves or Saboteur. The second was Niagara, another complete original, in which canoers are travelling down and hopefully up the Niagara river gathering jewels; but the river actually flows (moving board!) and obviously the Falls are awaiting the unwary and those caught out by the weather...

After leaving I was really hungry and went home quickly for a routine soup. In contrast to yesterday, the prospect of spending a few quiet hours in my own small enclosure seemed attractive enough. Not to mention that I had two days' worth of experiences to put to (electronic) paper, plus the fact that, the weather willing, I still intend to make it to Selby by bike tomorrow. Sleeping away all those hours of daylight just won't do!

Seeing that it is already way past midnight, it is a good thing that my writing will have caught up with my actions by the time I reach the period ending this sentence, like so.