Glassy-eyed

It was a sparsely-attended GNN again this week, with various members out of town, unavailable, or poorly (get well soon Adam). When I stumbled through Laura's back door a little after half-seven, there was just Laura and Martin sitting there, like shepherds with flocks misplaced. With Katy on her way as the fourth and final participant, we just had time for a quick bash at Hit. Fortune favoured me in the briefest of warm-ups, but it was pretty close:

Sam 83
Laura 70
Martin 29

Then Katy arrived, with biscuits, and we swiftly set up Mille Fiori. Martin was denied the opening salvo of the last time we played as things began slightly more cagily, with Laura and I getting in the way of his key strategy. I regularly found my cards offered little for me, but - as was noted later - I was sitting c**t-side of Martin. Katy professed some mild bamboozlement, but whatever was troubling her clearly lifted, as she eased away up the scoretrack like sportscar pulling away from three streetsweepers. Martin's voice pitch ran the gamut between disdain and despair, as Laura's percentage of professed understanding of Mille Fiori dropped from 80% down to 50, even as she shuffled into second place.

Katy in fact was so far ahead that it became a fight for second place, as Martin and I (green/red) recovered to catch Laura (orange). In the picture below you can just about make out Katy's valedictory fingers moving her own marker (purple) even further away from us on the fare side of the board. 

And the game concluded with Katy scoring a whopping 262 points, dwarfing previous high scores by regular Fiorians Martin and Joe Berger. She was sitting doofus-side of me though; maybe I should have played a more dickish game. In the post mortem, Martin realised Katy had concentrated her efforts on one side of the board only, ignoring keys and pyramids (or whatever they are). 

However she did it, it was a score for the ages.

Katy 262

Sam 230

Laura 214

Martin 198

Katy began making going-home noises, but we managed to coax another game out of her before she left, promising that Viva Pamplona would be less than half an hour. I didn't time it, but I think that was more or less the case. Everyone seemed to roll high at first, and found themselves too far ahead of the bull - except Laura, who took a cosy bovine strategy and found herself the chief beneficiary of the attacks, surging into a points lead. 

But if there's one thing GNNers don't like, it's a clear points leader, and Laura found herself the target of repeat pushing as jealous bull-runners ganged up on her. Even so, she was probably still decently placed for a possible win - until the bull sped up at the end, hurtling around the final corner to leave all of us licking our wounds and counting minus points. 

Sam 38

Katy 30

Martin 29

Laura 21

Brutal stuff. Katy then left, with plans for early-morning swims in glacial waters, and we changed gears somewhat with a revisit to Quirky Circuits, the pick-up-and-deliver game with an engine powered by The Mind-style table-reading and guesswork. Tasked with guiding our bee around the garden delivering pollen, we screwed up quickly as slight game-fade combined with engineered confusion caused misunderstandings. 

But with time - or battery power - running low, we finished the task by the skin of our teeth - and moved on to Spots, which Laura had never played. I made a dice dog while Martin explained the rules.

Then we jumped in to the dice-rolling fiesta. I think we all went bust, Laura at my hands - one action allowed me to increase the value of dice in her yard - and Martin most spectacularly, as he went from the verge of three complete dogs to a trio of crestfallen mutts. Meanwhile, I expanded my kennels...

After 15 minutes, only Laura had banked a single dog. But Martin changed all that by auto-banking three of them, and then repeating the same trick shortly after. 

Martin wins!

We felt we had one more game in us and, though Laura professed a hesitation to play a word game, mine and Martin's enthusiasm (-sorry Laura) for So Clover ended up trumping the alternatives.

But if Laura's hesitation was performance anxiety, it was misplaced. Her clover was our sole success, with Movember a great clue for Beard/Time and Patisserie giving us Dessert/Group. Only Fire for Pig/Lava gave us pause... In contrast, Martin and I struggled, even though I felt Mugtree was a decent clue for Cup/Forest and he was appalled that Laura and I settled on the Forbidden/Border combo for his clue of Rim. Sorry Martin - it's just not like you to pass up that kind of literary opportunity. 

So, a fairly paltry score of 12/18, but a nice way to end the evening all the same. Thanks to our host, Laura, and hope to see you all next week!