Happy Returns

Wednesday isn't usually much of a games day - not at my (Sam's) house anyway. I'm normally playing football. But with Sally out and Andrew celebrating - I use the word guardedly - his birthday, we decided to convene at the table with Chris and Ian to see in Andrew's new year.

Chris was running slightly late so we started with Push It. I think Ian won the first game and during the second, Chris materialised. Not literally; that would be silly. But he did arrive bearing gifts and after not much debate at all we set up Tinner's Trail, the hardy perennial of GNN Towers.

I decided early to try Adam's strategy of building a mining empire and not worrying about investment cubes in round one. Ian got off to a good start and with Andrew and Chris also scoring points I did question the wisdom of this approach, especially when the prices for both tin and copper in the final round were rock bottom. At this point I had eleven tin to harvest and smattering of copper, so who knows? Had the prices been different it may have worked. As it was, I surged past Andrew and Chris, but couldn't catch Ian. Despite losing money on a mine, he still trounced us again!

Ian 95
Sam 88
Andrew 78
Chris 77

The night was young and we were full of bon viveur, or something. I was drinking Jaegermeister in an effort to ward off a cough, and a mishearing of Chris' prompted a round of smutty interpretations of the name. With three of us in our forties, this wasn't really acceptable. But hey.

We next played Celestia, the gravity-defying game of flying ships and evasive captains. "Can we make it sir?"
"I'm not going to tell you. You'll just have to hope I'm capable, even though I know I'm not"
I was not capable. I didn't make a note of the scores, but Andrew won with Ian and Chris scoring 40+ each. I was lagging back on 29.

After a bit of discussion we decided to finish off with Push It again, playing as teams this time. Poor old Chris was teamed with me. I've lost whatever vestige of mojo I once possessed with this game, and even my attempted bludgeonings led to very little. Andrew and Ian won the first game, and somehow Chris and I managed to pull a win from the fire in the second.

Then they went. It was an early finish, but we were sated. Best wishes Andrew - and also Matt, who shares a birthday with him!