Fire and Rain

A grey old day, with rain near the coast all day. Big family gathering - my uncle has 8 kids, and 7 of them, and one grandchild came today. It was really wonderful to meet them all again and discover how warm and humorous they are. My sister is driving back from Gladstone tomorrow, and I hope that it's a safe journey for them. Nature is sometimes randomly brutal but I'm sure I worry too much. In the evening, we lit a fire in the stone pit to burn the paper rubbish and some branches that had fallen from teh trees around the house. It was lovely to listen to the flames and the birds settling in the distance as dusk faded into evening. A light rain started. It took over an hour for the rain to quench the fire.

I've been trying to find a particular game board on the internet. We have one copy in the family, and it's very tattered. Mum made a photocopy a few years ago, but that isn't aging very gracefully, and as we're all grown up now, there's a lot of people who have learnt it over the years and like to play it, so we need about 3 or 4 of these boards. Before I sink the hours into photoshop, I decided to Google it. I am astounded when something isn't on there. This isn't, certainly not under any of the names we've always called it by. I have learnt a bit about the categories of card games tonight. We've always called this game Rummy - but it has none of the defining features of Rummy.No melding, no knocking - even Mah Jong is a form of Rummy! No, our game's a cross between Hearts and Poker. After an hour and a haIf getting gmae-nerdy, I now think it's a variation of "Tripoley" (which I had never heard of before).

Excitedly, I called mum in to see the board design I'd found.

"Nope", she said, "ours has a bit that says 7,8,9, and that one says 8, 9, 10".

She wants it *exactly*the*way*it*is*right*now*.

Looks like time for photoshop then.