Back to the Blenheim earlier this week, for our weekly fix of fish, chips & Pimms for her and burger, chips & Yellowtail for me. More or less the same as last week (reference 1), except that the mushy peas looked rather like frozen peas which had passed through a blender, the red relish for my chips was a bit low on lumps and the wine came in a bucket. Buckets not having appeared in the past, I did not think to specify no bucket. But all very satisfactory nonetheless.
On this occasion I thought to try a dessert, described as a chocolate tart. Which turned out to be a wedge of something chocolaty on top of a thin layer of chocolate impregnated crushed digestive biscuit. The whole on top of a plate energetically drizzled with chocolate sauce, plus a sprinkling of raspberries, plus a scoop of pale ice cream, which served to cut the sweetness of all the chocolate. It all tasted much better than it might sound from the foregoing, with BH taking a full share, despite having declined the second spoon. Not as flashy as the cake at reference 2, but probably its equal in terms of kilocalories to the cubic centimetre.
And dessert completed, the bucket turned out to be useful for rinsing fingers.
New-to-us young waitress, pleasant and efficient. Rather more outside customers than last week - but I have still to check out the inside.
Greeted on arrival back home by some ballot papers from Dignity in Dying, whose work goes on, virus notwithstanding. I am asked to cast my vote to approve the latest annual report, to approve the continuation of the company's auditor - as a campaigning group it cannot be a charity, to approve new articles of association and to vote for two new board members - for which we are offered three candidates. The new articles are not for the weak-willed, but fortunately we are provided with a summary - with the change that caught my eye being taking out age and mental health related discrimination. I assume, although this is not spelt out, that this means campaigning for the right to die for all, including both those who are not particularly old and those with mental health problems - provided only that they are 'competent terminally ill adults'. A change which I agree with. The other changes look to be of a more administrative nature.
Conduct of the ballot, in line with current practise, has been outsourced to Civica Election Services, while I had thought that the Electoral Reform Society had the job. And checking, I find that I was probably right: the society has been rebadged. See reference 3.
I shall no doubt manage to cast my ballots in the month allotted.
After a short pause, the afternoon resumed with Scrabble. The big event was our managing our first ever draw. I was in the lead by 14, but BH drew level with 14 penalty points, that is to say double the value of the tiles that I was holding when she went out. So our combined score burst the 500 barrier, an entirely respectable outcome in the circumstances.
She was helped along by a large, if not record breaking score of 68, achieved by getting the 'q' of 'quads' on a triple letter and the word as a whole on a double word. 'Quiet' came later, giving her another 10 points for her 'q'.
The top left of the board defeated us. The sort of thing that sorts the Scrabble sheep out from the Scrabble goats.
The plastic bag top right, used to hold the tiles both during play and in-between times, was once a bread bag and was carefully preserved by FIL for this very purpose. Perhaps 15 years old now and starting to show its age. And he would not have approved of my scribbling on the right hand side of the score card, so rendering it unfit for scoring the next game.
Pen provided by the late lamented South Hatch bar and restaurant which we used to visit in the margins of our annual expedition to the Derby. An establishment which was once mainly used by racing stable people up on the Downs, but which, when that trade fell off, started to let the public in an effort to keep going. And if you didn't care to brave the crowds on the hill, there was a resident bookmaker so that you could both drink and bet in comfort. Probably a television too.
PS: some time later: having now peered inside the lid of the Scrabble box in the margins of this afternoon's game, I find I am in error as regards penalty points. The total of the remaining tiles should be added to the score of the person going out and subtracted from that of the other player or players. Which might make a difference to the outcome in the case of more than two players, but which is score neutral for any number of players. So we only scraped the 500 barrier, rather than getting over it by a short head.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/08/braved-heat.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/jelly-house-cake-day.html.
Reference 3: https://www.civica.com/en-gb/.
Reference 4: https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/.
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