Friends

This weekend has been a good time to catch up with friends and to just get a few things done around the home and do some shopping.

On Saturday night, we joined our friends Barbara and Theo at St Martin's Anglican Church for a "Crazy Whist Night" where we played cards, met a whole lot of new people and had a great fun evening together. About 28 people attended and all were friendly and enthusiastic, despite a number expressing the view that they had not played the game before. General rules were:

• 4 people per table
• play in pairs; partner sitting opposite
• separate score sheet for each player
• cut cards to determine dealer, highest card deals, "Ace highest"
• deal 13 cards to each player
• player to the left of the dealer plays first
• at the end of each game add up the number of tricks taken and add to your total score
• partners take same score at end of each game
• winning pair at the end of each hand moves on to next table and separates (do not continue as a pair)
• loosing pair each hand remains at same table and separates
• remember to take your own score sheet with you as you move positions

We played 15 games during the evening with a break mid way for supper. There were the usual trumps (Hearts, Spades etc) as well as "winner doubles their score", "play cards face down", "play one card and pass the hand to the next player", "take opponent's score", "winners score 13 loosers score 0" and "player with 7 of clubs receives bonus 20 points". I won the prize of "Keenest Player" - a tin of KEEN's mustard and had a total score of 116. Scores ran from 95 with Theo the overal winner on 130. Barbara scored 125 and Diane scored 113.

On Sunday after church, Ben and Jackie came to collect their ladder which I had brought back from Andrew and Fiona's after Ben and Andrew had done the finishing touches before leasing out the house. Then Diane and I went to Sue and Roy's for lunch. It was a good afternoon of fellowship followed by the "mandatory" afternoon nap before church in the evening.