It’s been a really long time since I’ve been able to see Nathan in real life. Between caring for Nan and that world event (still ongoing) it just wasn’t possible to visit him.

We’d speak several times a week thanks to the magic that is modern communication devices. Or less so if Arsenal (the team Nathan supports, I know I call it bad parenting) loose (which they do quite regularly). Nathan does take bad results rather too personally.

Nathan is currently house and dog sitting for his mum. We won’t even go into the weirdness factor about me staying at my ex’s house whilst she is not there. Don’t worry she knows I’m here. It was her idea for me to visit whilst he was here.

After having tea (pork with cauliflower cheese, and garlic bread) , we watched Nobody. Which is an amazing movie and probably my film of 2021. Nathan really enjoyed the movie.

I then taught Nathan how to play Wingspan (with all the expansions) and royally got my butt kicked.

But Nathan playing a turn three Common Raven did make any chance I had of winning much harder.

I think this was a first for me having end of round goals that came purely from the expansions. The end of round 4 goal was very “interesting”, most cubes on the play a bird action!. It meant doing something I rarely do that round to even qualify for points from it. Round 4 is all about eggs on birds, and hopefully tucking some cards and caching food. Basically getting points on the birds. To play a bird in round 4 it basically has to be worth more points than you’d get from doing the lay eggs action. It’s not a simple decision, you need to take into account any egg cost (losing points) plus any point gain from the bonus cards you have. Often it just isn’t worth playing a bird in the round.

I followed Wingspan by introducing Nathan to Splendor Marvel. A game that I was humiliated in. Yep Nathan destroyed me 16 points to 6!

We finished the night watching the first episode of Reacher on Amazon Prime. The trailer had made it look like Reacher was constantly making wise cracks. Which isn’t the Reacher of the books. Luckily the fears were unfounded. The first episode and I’m guessing the rest of the series are an adaptation of the first Jack Reacher novel Killing Floor. I enjoyed the first episode so will watch the rest.

The post title? Naturally it’s the KISS song (from their self titled debut album) that sums up how long it’s felt not seeing Nathan.