Friday 23rd June – Cards Tournament

For no reason whatsoever except for staying out late the last two nights playing pool, we slept in to an ungodly hour. Even when we did wake up, we didn’t leave the room. The cards were sitting on the bedside table so I grabbed them. We started playing Canasta first, then took a break for showers, then went straight back into it playing Dan’s version of two-player poker. It was very nearly the afternoon by the time we surfaced, meeting Debbie in the kitchen while we made breakfast. I made omelettes my way this time but they weren’t nearly as good as Dan’s.

After the morning of intense card playing and a full belly, I was feeling lethargic. We went back to Dan’s room and lay on the bed to watch the news. After an hour of that we were sick of looking at a screen so went back to cards, playing Canasta again. It was an astoundingly long game but I came out on top. We were both tired from the competition and already sitting on the bed so before we knew it we were asleep.

When we woke up, we were alarmed to see that it was 4pm. On top of that, there was a text on my phone from Debbie saying that Uncle Daniel and Sarah must come out to see Emmi. Emmi, Eva and their Mum Alex were over and playing in the kitchen. We emerged from the room to find Cleo loyally standing guard, waiting for us to come out. She was happy to see us and so was Emmi. We got straight into playing games and swapping Mexico stories with Alex. We even witnessed a meltdown when Emmi did the wrong thing and wasn’t allowed to go in the pool as a result. When she saw her opportunity and snuck in, she was in the shit. It got worse when she ate forbidden candy, cueing their departure. We said goodbye to the young family and contemplated dinner.

Like an old married couple, Dan started up the grill to cook some chicken thighs while I made a pasta salad. I asked for his opinion on the flavouring, but I left the grilling completely to him. When all was done, we were waiting for the chicken to cook so jumped in the pool to cool off. With the sun behind the trees, it was tolerable in the shade. Chicken done, we were out and Debbie set us up with dinner plates so we could eat outside. I had a lemonade, still being sober, while Dan drank the usual beer. The chicken was crispy on the outside with BBQ flavouring and my pasta salad hit the spot. We were both pretty happy with ourselves.

After dinner, not surprisingly we weren’t that tired so looked up a movie to watch. After a quick look I found the new xXx movie which would be suitably ridiculous to suit our needs. It was exactly that, so much so that we couldn’t stomach more than half. Figuring we could entertain ourselves better without help, we got the cards out again and finished the night off with another round of Dan’s poker game. After a strong challenge from me, he came out on top, making the whole day of playing pretty well even.