Sunday, April 12

Last night we watched detective series on television late into the night: George Gently, Criminal Minds, and some whose names I never found out. Today we got up at 12:30.

I went walking for thirty minutes and during that time the weather changed completely. When I left the house it was a cooler version of yesterday. As I walked the temperature dropped and the sky filled with grey clouds. When I got back home there was a cold wind and it felt like rain.

At 14:00 Irma and Naa left to visit Irma’s father and then collect Niilia, who is coming for a visit. There was talk of playing some games when there are four of us here, and I saw an opportunity to finally play Carcassonne. I downloaded the English version of the rules from  my Dropbox, and studied the game for an hour.

Now I am going through the photographs from Barcelona, before storing them in Dropbox tomorrow. There are many duplicates and near duplicates, and plenty where the focus is wrong.

I found this photo which was taken during pne of our trips to Lidl, when I realised that they have a different “ambassador chef” on each country. In Finland it is Hans Velimäki, and here in Catalonia it is Sergi Arola. Both of them have won two Michelin stars. I now have a new hobby: collecting the ambassador chefs from every country I visit.

Maybe I can turn it into a Lidl trading card game.

While I am thinking this it will suddenly rain in a short but heavy shower. When the rain stops Irma, Naa and Niilia will appear, stay ten minutes and then walk to Plantagen to get flowers for Tarku’s dog Jekku, who died of old age yesterday.

Later Naa, Niilia and I will play Carcassonne twice, and everyone will really like it. Irma will watch and keep score. The game is very well balanced but, like Draughts, the simplicity of the game masks the possibility of using quite complex strategy. It will be a bittersweet experience because, as we play I will find myself realising just how much this game would have appealed to Auo.

She would have loved the pieces and the design; she would have relished the strategy involved and the ability to outwit people; and the fact that there are numerous expansion packs would have sent her into paroxysms of delight. She would have spent the rest of the evening googling them and trying to work out which one we should get. I will find myself playing while, at the same time, wishing that Auo could be here to see it and join in.