Today

This week I took the extreme step of deleting all the games off my computer. You know, the freebies - Freecell, Spider Solitare, Solitare, Hearts, Minesweeper. Time-wasters, all the lot of them. I had been doing Freecell & Spider Solitare in 100 game batches, after which I'd clear my scores and start again, always trying to beat my last average. Which says it all, really - I must have played 1000's of games, costing 100's of hours of my valuable life.

It's not as though I'm a great cards player. My sister loves to play internet cards and has made friends worldwide, and my Bridge-playing brother is involved in several Babu rings. More that I would have some chore to do, like writing the Parish Council Newsletter, and instead play several dozen games of solitare. I didn't get any better (about 60% was my best average in Spider) and still had to get the other job done, but with an added burden of guilt and often in a hurry.

Since taking this step I've sorted out the study (Hurrah!) and started to sort out Paul's business filing system. I've sewn buttons and stitched up hems on clothes that sorely needed a bit of TLC and finally re-hemmed the curtains for the 2nd window in the bedroom (after only about 9 months).

In My Day

Although we played games as children, our card games were limited to snap, cheat and pontoon. My parents played Canasta together using little scorecards with dials. My brother experienced an epiphany as a teenager when he learnt how to play bridge - later becoming a player of international stature. He tried to teach me but I was an inept student.

Mamma used to play patience a lot - Demon, Clock, etc, turning the cards over and over for hours. Perhaps this harked back to times when she sat up waiting for Daddy to come home from the House of Commons after a late sitting, with us in bed and only the radio for company. She was good at cards, learning bridge with Chris and playing in local clubs until shortly before her death. Perhaps spending time on patience games was a symptom of her never far away depression, as she was a creative person and there must have been many things she could have been doing. Or maybe they gave her a vacant space in her crowded-with-children life.

I do remember someone even giving her a book of patiences for Christmas once. I think there's a big difference between playing patience and other card games in that it's essentially solitary ("solitare", in fact!) and seems to be rather lonely.

Anyone got a pack of cards?