Scrabble

Sorry for the lull it’s half-term (again) and we took the girlies to Venice on the train, as it was cheaper, and I was lured by the thought of reading non-stop for six and a half hours.  At least I would have if I hadn’t taught Lexi to play scrabble last week and she triumphantly produced the board – having got through the rucksack control with her booty under the cover of darkness -  two minutes out of Lausanne before the man with the trolley had even passed.   

I’m rubbish at board games being a non-competitive type but I’m quite good at scrabble.  In fact I am so good I once made a man leave a room in fury when I produced the word “sequin” in New York back in 1986. (Claims to fame, you’ve got to grab ‘em and milk ‘em).

I like an ambitious man but not one who shouts “STOP THE GAME!!!” in Monopoly whenever someone lands on (his) Park Lane especially when playing with young children,  or one who refuses every Christmas to have his mother-in-law on his team for Trivial Pursuits.  But then this is a man who has never failed anything.  Not one exam, driving test, nada.  He passes everything first time.  When we were studying together for our motor boat license  I, as a slow-to-learn plodder, religiously studied 30 minutes a day two weeks prior, using the book, the interactive CD Rom and even had a plastic motor boat in the bath.  Mr. Jules looked at the book for about an hour in total, poured scorn on my exam techniques and you guessed it, not only passed but was the first out of the room.

A French woman once said to me.  “Mon plus grand travail c’est de lire.”  (My greatest life work is reading).   And I feel the same way.  When not organising my family’s life my next largest chunk of time is spent reading.  My reading bag for the train held a copy of Condé Nast Traveller, the FT, The Sunday Times, Hello Magazine, The Migros Magazine, a day old copy of La Côte, a book on meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn and The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff (brilliant). 

So words and the forming of them, plucking them out of the air, are part of me.  Scrabble plugs into my knowledge base.  And finally I beat him.