I’ve been playing Sean O’Connor’s Slay for around 30 years (!), but somehow it took until today, on the Android version,
before I tried my hand at “rewilding” the game world.
The rules of the game make trees… a bad thing: you earn no income from hexes with them. But by the time I was winning this map anyway, I figured that encouraging growback would be a
pleasant way to finish the round.
Play your videogames any damn way you want. Don’t let anybody tell you there’s a right or wrong way to enjoy a single-player game. Today I took a strategy wargame and grew a forest. How
will you play?
Yes, it’s a game about drilling for oil using offshore digs. With a remarkable picture on the front of a rig in distinctly stormy seas. And look – there’s BP‘s logo on it: yes, Offshore
Oil Strike got their official endorsement when it was released in the 1970s, but it’s coming back to haunt them now as board game collectors dig out their old copies and give it one
last go (apparently it never sold very well, not least because it’s a dull and uninspiring game).
I was particularly amused by the card which reads “Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1 million.” – one of the worst cards to draw as a player. A whole million
dollars?
That diversion aside, there’s more fun and games here on Earth:
The other night, we got the chance to try Fat Boyz Pizza, our second-nearest local pizza place (after the Pizza
Hut Express just around the corner). I was reasonably impressed: good-sized pizza at a reasonable price, very tasty, and only slightly too greasy (we’re talking a little
bit too much grease, not Hollywood Pizza – from whom
whose menu we ordered for many, many years back in
Aberystwyth – here).
We have a green woodpecker who visits our garden. I’ve never seen a
woodpecker in an urban environment before, but this one certainly seems keen. We speculate that his appearance right after we overturned a couple of ants’ nests while digging the garden
is not a coincidence, though, but rather a tasty treat.
We’ve started planting! Only herbs and flowers, so far – and we’re probably too late in the year to kick off many vegetables – but it’s a start. Our garden still has a long way to
go.
Ruth, JTA and I – later joined by
Matt P – went to Jen & Nick’s wedding
over in Belfast this weekend, and it was awesome. They’re an amazing couple and it was great to get to be part of their celebrations, to meet the fabulous folks they’re related to, and
to drink ourselves under the table. Ruth has already written a little
about it, so I’ll just point you in the direction of her blog.
Jen & Nick's Wonderful Wedding Cake - each of the four layers is a different cake, including a layer that's gluten-free and a layer that's suitable for vegans. The sunflower theme was
carried through the entire wedding.
In other news, I’ve been exploring OS maps and it turns out that the garden here on Earth is actually about 20-24 feet longer than we’d previously believed! There’s a fence at
the “end” of our garden with a concealed mystery gate, behind which is land overgrown and bramble-filled… but a little research indicates that this, too, is our garden, and we’re now
preparing to mount an expedition (with machetes!) to explore and conquer this new land. And then turn it into a vegetable plot.
The end of our garden, inset with some of the annoted maps I've been using to find the boundries of the property.
Right: time for lunch and to register with a local GP.
