While I was out brushing up the leaves this morning I decided that it was high time I wrote another blog post but I couldn’t think of anything particularly funny or newsworthy to write about. Then I began to think about recycling – maybe I could find a funny post from years ago and let it do the rounds again; my long-term followers might have forgotten about it (although I don’t know how if it was that hilarious!) and the more recent visitors to my site could have the pleasure of reading the post afresh. The first one of the best old posts to come to mind was “Truth and Triumph”, a funny little story about an unusual board game of the same title. One thought leads on to another and soon I was thinking about Chris, and I suddenly realised that I fell in love with him almost exactly twenty years ago…
I could not have known at that point that Chris would be the one, perfect man, for me because I was old enough to know that perfection does not exist. I had had handsome, intelligent and wonderful boyfriends before but something had always been missing… none of them enjoyed playing games as much as I do, and some of them not at all. I’m not talking about tricky psychological games or games of hockey or football – more like Scrabble, Chinese Chequers, Rummikub or Backgammon (I wonder why it’s called Backgammon?). Well, unrealistic as it seemed, I had held out for an awfully long time. And yet, when Chris asked me to marry him I didn’t ask the burning question…
Twenty years on I’m delighted to say that whenever Chris wants to get into my good books he asks if I want to play a game, and these days it’s most likely to be Backgammon because it’s so quick and exciting. We play on an ancient board given to us by our dear Egyptian friend Am, who sadly died only weeks after he introduced us to the game and presented us with the ornate box with mother of pearl marquetry. We love the box, the game and the reminder of Am every time we open the box. Chris often says, “I wonder what Am would think if he knew how much we love his game.” And I say, “He’s probably smiling down at us.” I love that Chris feels like this – I’m not just lucky at games, I’m lucky in love.
On Sunday Mary, my sister, returned from her weekly car-boot-sale outing with our Mum and said….
“I have a little something for you and Chris, Sally – it cost me nothing.” (Naturally it was in her car- boot!). “You and Chris love games – don’t you?”
And we do, at least I do, and Chris obliges me by joining in, otherwise there would be no-one for me to play with. So last night when Chris asked if I wanted to play Chinese Chequers, I surprised him by suggesting that we play Mary’s Truth and Triumph game instead. Chris pulled a face but I was so keen that he didn’t have the heart to refuse. The box was like an old treasure chest, brown as oak, and had “Truth and Triumph” printed in gold capitals in the centre – nothing else, no indicator as to what could be inside – and the edges and corners of the box were worn and a bit ragged. Chris left it to me to open it – well, I was the keen one – but we were both interested to know what was inside. Firstly, there was a stiff, quite nice quality board (so it was a board game) with a dusting of powdery mould on the back (not used that much then…), underneath that was the instruction manual, and beneath that four brown boxes with gold lettering – one was entitled WISDOM, the next THE CHURCH, (I began to think it a little different to the games I’m used to ….) THE LIFE OF CHRIST, and finally (as if I needed any more confirmation about the theme), the last box said THE OLD TESTAMENT; then there were the counters, the score cards and the dice.
“Perhaps it’s a game for nuns or old priests,” I suggested.
“Let’s play Chinese Chequers,” Chris suggested.
“Come on, let’s give it a go for a few minutes,” I encouraged, “you should be better at it than me because your granddad was a minister.”
Chris usually reads the instruction guides for everything in the house but on this occasion he let me do it because I was the one who wanted to play. I hate reading instructions so we ended up playing our own version of it (good job too, otherwise it would have taken all night!). It transpired that the game is very similar to Trivial Pursuit but with a religious theme. I threw the dice first and landed on a LIFE OF CHRIST question card.
“What kind of place was Christ’s tomb situated in?” Chris asked.
“A graveyard.”
“No, what KIND of a place?”
“A nasty place, out in the wastelands, away from the metropolis… a sort of cave… with a big rock in front?” I said everything I could think of.
“No, I don’t mean that. What kind of land?”
“Barren land – very rocky?”
“Definitely not rocky,” Chris laughed (he alluded to Rocky, the handsome Texan in my book), “It starts with a G…”
“A GGGarden – the hanging gardens of Babylon!”
“No, the gardens of…?”
“Gethsemane?”
And so we played on for over an hour, helping each other through the difficult questions. Perhaps my favourite question was….
“What did John the Baptist wear?”
“Hemp” (I thought that sounded sufficiently coarse and uncomfortable for such a pious man), “or sackcloth, if you prefer?”
“Nope”
“It can’t be something nice like cotton, it must be an animal skin – goats wool?”
“No, but you’re on the right track,” urged Chris.
“Lion skin!”
“No, it begins with a ‘c’ – come on, ka… ka… camel…?”
“Camel skin!”
“No, silly girl, it’s camel hair!”
“Of course, everyone knows that!” I said.
In truth, I can’t remember any of the serious questions – they were way over my head; in triumph, I answered two questions correctly by guesswork; in disgrace, I answered one by cheating – I saw the answer on the other side of the card!
The wear and tear on the box must either have occurred through overuse of the surface as a good push off for Tiddlywinks or there is another scenario…
Picture, if you will, an evening at the nunnery. Young Sister Teresa Mary goes to the cabinet that stores all the board games; in-between Scrabble and Cluedo is a brown box like a treasure chest, which is dark and mysterious (only the older nuns know what lies within); yet again Sister Teresa Mary slides the box half-out and looks around at the others (busy rug-making or sewing tapestries), and she asks, “Would anyone like to play Truth and Triumph for a nice change tonight?” All hands stop working and all eyes look horrified, but no-one dares to speak, except for Mother Superior who says, “Let’s save that for a special occasion, Sister, I’ve been looking forward to a good game of Scrabble all day – who’s for Scrabble?” There are sighs and coughs, and several nuns kiss their rosaries. Thank God for Mother Superior!
