Last week I got to visit Nathan.
As I was driving down on the Tuesday afternoon Nathan was taking his driving test. Which was finishing around the time I was passing his location. So I deviated from the M3 to surprise him at Fleet train station and give him a lift home.
When Nathan and his instructor pulled up at the station car park I got out to greet him. But had no idea what the outcome was. That was until he got out the car, gave me a quick thumbs up, and posed for the traditional ‘just passed’ photo next to the instructors car.
Once he was finished I got to give him a hug and tell him how proud of him I was. I’m always proud of Nathan but I don’t think I tell him that enough.
It’d been a long day with the driving etc, so I made my go to comfort food for our tea, a bowl of noodles with chorizo (although I use whatever I have in the cupboard/fridge usually).
We then settled down to watch series 19 of Hell’s Kitchen (a series Nathan enjoys). As a compromise we went with one episode of that followed by an episode of Justified. And repeat.
Nathan hadn’t seen Justified before. But after watching the first episode he was hooked.
The thing about Justified is it’s a western with a modern setting for sure. However the writing, acting, casting, are just as near to perfect as you can get. Each of the six seasons are 13 episodes long. They all have a story arc for the season along with an on going overall story arc between the main protagonists of the series. Even the supporting characters are amazing and developed. I can’t think of any dead episodes. You know episodes that just tread water, do nothing story wise.
I think I must have watched Justified six or seven times now. And it doesn’t get boring even though I know what is happening.
I just love the show.
The big thing for me on Wednesday was that I was making Nathan a curry from scratch.
Unlike his old man, Nathan doesn’t do heat in his food. So the challenge was to create a tasty, spicy curry that had no heat.
I had no idea how this was going to turn out. There was no plan apart from using the core three ingredients coriander,cumin, and fennel seeds, and staying away from stuff that added heat. So there was some turmeric added, along with a cinnamon stick, cloves, curry leaves, and star anise. After toasting these ingredients it was time to turn them into a powder using a mortar and pestle. It was a lot of hard work I can tell you.
When it came to cooking I softened a diced onion, added some chopped tomatoes, the curry powder, then two cans of coconut milk, then some diced potatoes, and finally diced chicken breast.
What I ended up with was a creamy flavourful curry that seemed similar in style to a Thai green curry to me. But had no heat. It came out better than I expected. Nathan enjoyed it. which is the main point for me. I did add some heat for me by using some chilli crunch on my bowl contents.
The only game we got to play was LoTR the living card game. Which I did write about at the time! You can find that in this post here.
The rest of the time we spent together on Wednesday was alternating between Hell’s Kitchen and Justified.
Thursday was a completely different story. That was when the right arm started to cause me some pain.
Despite that we managed to get the remaining two games of the LoTR the lcg core campaign played. We did have a blast and I do need to write them up with the similar style that I did for the first game in the campaign.
It was lucky that we got the third and final game out of the way by tea time as that evening the arm was really causing me some pain.
I like to think I have a high pain tolerance. I can usually focus out most things. Having tinnitus does have an advantage. Over the years I have developed the “skill” of being able to focus out stuff like a constant ringing, or a stinging nettle sting, etc. But sometimes things get too painful or loud to be able to do that.
This arm pain was definitely falling into the too painful to focus out. I even resorted to paracetamol and ibuprofen, but that made no difference at all.
The rest of a painful evening was spent watching those two shows.
After what at best can be described as a disturbed nights sleep of pain I was on my last morning with Nathan.
After my usual coffee and pain au chocolate start to the day. Which I wasn’t getting my usual enjoyment from, it was very functionary. But that was the pain talking I think. I introduced Nathan to the Star Wars the deckbuilding game (which will be getting an expansion sometime next year according to a brief comment in one of the FFG In-flight things at this years GenCon).
After taking an early lead capturing two of the empire bases, Nathan managed to pull things back and get the win.
He liked this game a lot. So much so he was going to buy a copy for himself. I knew he would like it. He loves Star Realms for starters, and like his old man loves Star Wars. So this was the safest bet ever that he would like Star Wars the deckbuilding game.
I decided to save Nathan some money and leave my copy of the game with him. After all he’s going to be the main person I will play the game with. It was bought to play with him in the first place.
After that defeat it was time to load up the car and return home. This was not going to be a pleasurable drive home. But I did make it home.
I really enjoyed my time with Nathan despite the arm pain doing it’s best to ruin it. Hopefully once he has wheels he will be able to pop up and visit. When that happens I have so many games I want to share with him starting with Scythe.