A trip away - part 1.

On Wednesday K, M & I went to stay with my brother, S, and sister-in-law, P, who moved to Oxford last spring.  We stopped for lunch en route at my parents, but only saw them very briefly as they were off to take my Grandma for a hospital appointment.  Emily, my satnav, didn't let us down and we didn't have any problem finding where we were going and we arrived early afternoon.

We had taken the game that Uncle S & Aunty P had given the girls for Christmas, The Big Fat Tomato Game, to play with them, so that's what we did.  K & M both teamed up with Aunty P and Uncle S and I played on our own.  S & P agreed that it was bonkers but good fun.

Previously P had emailed us a link with things to do in Oxford, in case there was anything in particular that grabbed the girls, which there were, but unfortunately those things that did were either not really suitable for or not open/happening at this time of year, or really rather expensive.  One thing that wasn't on the link, was the place that P had bought The Big Fat Tomato Game from, Thirsty Meeples Board Game Cafe, but as soon as K & M heard about it, they were extremely keen to go there and, particularly given the weather forecast, P & I were happy to go along with the idea (unfortunately S was working so couldn't come too).  So on Thursday we arrived there at about 11 o'clock and didn't leave until gone 4pm!  You pay a cover charge if you want to play any games, which is very reasonable if you're going to play 2 or 3, and the staff are very helpful and knowledgeable but it gets rather expensive if you have much to eat and drink.  They do do very good hot chocolate though!

Post hot chocolate smile!

We started off by introducing Aunty P to Rummikub and played a couple of rounds of that.  Then we thought it would be sensible to take advantage of the enormous variety of games and the knowledge of the staff.  So we talked to the man there and told him what we already knew and liked and asked him for suggestions, then tried two of them. 

The first one was Forbidden Island, which is a cooperative game, where you need to work together rather than against the other players and you either all win or lose.  We all really enjoyed it, so much so in fact that I decided to spend some of my birthday money!  Unfortunately they didn't have one in stock in the shop, but I was told that they could almost certainly have one in pretty quickly and so I emailed later and indeed, they did by the next day (more on that later).

The second one we tried was one that a couple of different friends had mentioned to me as one to look out for, Dixit.  It took us a while to get into this, especially M, and we tended to use just one word rather than a sentence, and it is a rather odd concept, but we did enjoy it once we'd got the hang of it.

One of our rounds in Dixit - the word given was 'yellow'.

We finished off with one of the (many!) alternative versions of an old favourite of ours, Carcassonne.  We went with the South Seas version, it was different enough from the original to make it interesting, although I wouldn't buy it playing in a place like this is a really good way to get a bit of variety.  We didn't quite get the hang of parts until about half way through the game though!

Once home P, K & M took 'Cousin Megan' for a walk, before they all got changed.

K, Aunty P & M in their onesies!

In the morning before we'd headed out, M had been rather interested in the chess set, so we'd had a go, with me helping M, reminding how the pieces move and pointing this out to her.  I should say that I although I know how the pieces move, I am very definitely not a chess player, I always refused to play chess with my brother and would only play draughts, because he always beat me at chess and I usually won at draughts!  She wanted to have another go when we got home, so she and Aunty P had a couple of games.  The first time, Aunty P went a bit easy on her to start with and then regretted it when M beat her!  The second time she didn't hold back and did win, but took a long time to finally corner M, who defended really well.

The zebra & the giraffe playing chess.