I enjoy driving over to Jeff’s fortress of solitude (yes it does seem that remote where he lives.) Especially when I go the back roads.

It’s like a trip down memory lane.

As a kid my grandad (Dads side of the family) was the landlord of the Wheatsheaf Pub in a small fenland village called Walpole Marsh. The pub was a true old school spit and sawdust type of place. I remember the large walk in pantry it had. But more importantly if you had to do a number two that involved using what was basically a plank with a hole in it over who knows what! The mens urinal was outside with no roof.

The village is unrecognisable these days to my time there in the seventies. The pub is no longer a pub but a house. As is the chapel that was next to it.

My godparents home across the road from the pub, which was a bungalow with a barn next to it, has no trace of either.

The village hall gone and replaced with a home. The nursery that Nan sometimes worked at, homes.

Somehow I think the sense of the village being a community with the heart being pub has long gone for Walpole Marsh.

Today my back road route took me through the Walpoles and towards Walpole Marsh via Marsh Road.

As a kid we used to love going down Marsh Road. There is a slight slope/embankment it goes up. Dad used to go faster over that, and as you went over the top there was that rollercoaster moment of the tingly stomach. Pure joy for a young kid! Funny I loved that and have such find memories of it. But I can’t stand rollercoasters!

Once I was at Jeff’s it was down to business.

Jeff made the coffee, while I set up Libertalia.

Our first voyage was disastrous for me. At the end of it I’d only 7 doubloons to store in my treasure chest. Jeff had clocked up twenty odd. It was going to require some amazing turns and a lot of luck to overturn this deficit.

Voyage two was better for me. Jeff still scored more. The gap was only two or three doubloons. The third and final voyage I did much better and edged it over Jeff. But sadly not enough to overcome that first voyage.

As you can see from the final score I never really recovered from that disastrous first voyage.

Our next game Port Royal followed a similar start to Libertalia with Jeff making the coffee, whilst I setup aka shuffled the cards.

This was a learning game. I.e. reading the rules as we went.

For this game we were playing the base game, plus the cards from the expansion Just One More Contract. We did not use the contracts from the expansion.

I did enjoy the push your luck element of the game. Which is handy as it’s a major part of the game!

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run” The Gambler

Apparently the above advice isn’t something Jeff knows! The number of times he just pushed his luck too far. Me a couple of times I stopped after my first card. Hey a ship giving me three coins is worth it. Plus it screws over the other player as they don’t get anything! However the game rewards pushing your luck, as the more ships of different colours you have out the more cards you get to choose (up to a maximum of three).

I still need to play this game with more players. But as a two player game I enjoyed it. Definitely need to work out how this fits in the gaming case, or what goes to make way for it. However that’s a decision for another day.

Playing Port Royal with Jeff meant that I made progress with three of my gaming challenges.

A great afternoon gaming with Jeff. I hope there is an opportunity to repeat it in the near future.