International Scrabbling and a Quick Revisit by Winter

Last night, between bowls of pasta and apple crumble (not a sophisticated menu), I looked over at my two dinner guests and persuaded them that there was only one thing that could possibly salvage our carb and alcohol stupified brains -Super Scrabble!

My dinner guests were my Italian Host Sister (IHS), who is staying with me while she job hunts, and one of my younger brothers.



Hmm, an Italian not operating in her first language and, I had forgotten that, my brother happens to be dyslexic - it could have been a dreadful mistake. However, it was not at all.

There were some excellent, if not compelling, debates over viable words and their imaginative spelling. Both my IHS and my brother were convinced, mainly by their highly competitive natures, of being correct. I did my best to mediate by waving the Scrabble dictionary over their heads!

My IHS kept writing down words that she did not know. We did congratulate her on such a good idea but when I peeped over her shoulder, I am just not sure how useful she will find 'qi', 'zo', 'jol' and 'ruga' in everyday life?!

I can picture it now, "Hello, I would love to work for your company. As you can tell, my English is excellent. Yes, I would love a cup of tea. No sugar, thank you - just a little zo milk, please."

Now those were just the players present in person. To add to the international flavour of our game, I eyed up the 4th empty letter holder and actually, I really missed the Fella.

So um...I cheekily video skyped him and got him to join our game over the internet. That almost flattened my brother who couldn't get over the fact that someone living 8 hours behind us, where it was still daylight, was playing Scrabble with us. Not to mention the hilarity generated by my dangling my laptop over the game, so he could see the word layout on the board.

So really, it was just your average Saturday night in at a house in the London suburbs - 3 people and a laptop huddled around a game of Super Scrabble?

The photos show the snowy scenes that greeted us when we ventured out this morning. However snow in London tends to be a fragile thing and by the time that we got back from a restorative pub lunch, it had all gone. I am just hoping that the snow did not damage my wood peony flower buds!