Gambling On Courgettes

Friday night was spent sorting the house out. Everything is now where it should be although looking over the place last night I made some mental notes of further things that can go. I also found a few things I'm going to try selling on e-bay which include Ghost House - an old classic game from my childhood. I remember spending summers at the caravan in Portaferry playing this with my brother who was always slightly better at it than me. Then we got a Super Nintendo and this started gathering dust on the shelf. I'm surprised it isn't buried in a landfill site along with the rest of my childhood.

Saturday afternoon was spent shopping which I think I will always detest. You can do it on Sunday when it's calmer but you run the risk of there being nothing left or nothing worth spending money on like that last courgette that's bashed or has the protective film removed and a mysterious mark on it which then blows your dinner plans out of the water because it's an essential component of the meal. You can usually find everything on Saturday but you have to compete with screaming children, bored fathers and 'slow movers'. These people include old folk who don't know what they want, don't know where it is and can't get there fast enough or don't have the capacity to push past Mr or Mrs Indecision or 'that person who blocks the aisle' looking for raspberry jam - no not that rasperberry jam - that one with the label on the front with the frills and fancy writing. And there you stand with rage in your eyes boring a hole into the side of their head wanting them to turn around so you can give them that look telling them what a complete waste of space they are for blocking the way just so you can look for a replacement for courgettes and by the time they notice there's a three trolley back up and you just want to walk away from it all.

Or maybe that's just me. I've thought about shopping online but there's a drawback to this because we shop according to recipes. Each week we take turns coming up with recipes for whatever amount of days we need so if there is a missing courgette, another meal will have to be pulled from the magic hat. On the plus side we get to have a delcious home-made meal everynight and only rarely buy a ready-made meal which is invariably pizza on a Friday night which I think is just what pizza's were made for.

Saturday evening and early Sunday morning were spent playing Texas Hold-Em. From 9pm until 3.30am a hundred or more hands were dealt and my stock-pile slowly dwindled and then amounted until I eventually called it quits with 50% more than I started with. By this time I was wired on coffee and running on empty. It was time to go home.
Our taxi driver asked us what we had been up to and after explaining he told us that he used to play at the Cavendish Club that was raided by the police earlier in the year. Apparently there was £41,000 taken which has now been returned and because of the clubs private nature there is a loophole which excludes the supposed illegality of gambling which is a good thing. I am not a fan of the crack-down on gambling in this country because it is run rough-shod by religious zealots but that's for another post as is the question of whether poker is truly 'gambling' as it is not 100% risk because there is skill involved. Our taxi driver in question spoke about a "top-table" where you could go if you were good at the game or I suppose, had a lot of money. Unfortunately I don't qualify on either counts so for now I'll have to stick with what I've got which is no bad thing.

Trust you had a good weekend whatever you got up to. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow.