It’s funny where you end up talking about board gaming sometimes.

Yesterday after a night of forcing matter of differing types out of both ends of the body, and severe stomach pain, Mum ended up being taken into hospital for further investigation and some magic pills/injections to take away the pain and stop the sickness.

Which meant I was left holding the fort, and having to clean up the aftermath. Lets just say if there was a list of things not to put on a bucket list, I hit three of them recently. One of them happened a couple of weeks ago, and the other two were yesterday morning. I swore the messy one was something my brother was down for doing.

After feeding the dogs, cleaning up after the dogs (second time I’d done a similar job that morning), feeding Nan, I headed off to be with Mum at the hospital.

When I got to Mum she was on the happy pill and the pain was a far and distant memory.

To while away some of the time I had taken the player guide from the bundle to look at. It was this booklet that was to start a couple of interesting discussions about gaming.

The first was at the hospitals Costa while I was being served. I had just ordered a blueberry muffin and a cortado (it’s my favourite drink they do) when the assistant serving me noticed the players guide, and mentioned there was a new set out soon. To which I replied this weekend, and the Prerelease was last weekend. He was a MtG player too, and we chatted about cards, and Prerelease events.

As I was returning to Mum they were just wheeling her away for an x-ray. So I went with her.

Apparently this wasn’t her x-ray. But while waiting around the x-ray department the male nurse asked me about my players guide. He thought it was something to do with actual magic. So I handed over the players guide and explained it was for a collectible card game, and told me all about the new cards. We then got onto boardgames. He remembers really enjoying Escape from Colditz. I told him about the anniversary reprint, and the slightly updated rules. He seemed quite interested in this. I wouldn’t be surprised he ordered a copy. He’d also played Risk (I told him about Risk Legacy, and explained what a legacy game was). The last game he bought was Star Wars Monopoly. I can kinda understand it, it’s got Star Wars on it.

After the x-ray, and seeing Mum back to her room. It was time for me to head home and look after Nan, and save her from the dogs. Don’t worry Mum wasn’t alone for long. My step-sister and her husband spent all afternoon with her, keeping everyone updated on events or lack of a doctor seeing Mum. That was way beyond the call of duty and I’m very grateful for them doing so. It allowed me to be in two places at once so to speak. Mum was going to be kept in overnight for observation. Even then she had company for the evening. Which was handy because I was able to text through what tablets she was taking, and have a quick chat to reassure her we were doing ok this end.

Even if they don’t find anything and send her home later today (at the time of writing no idea what is happening) I hope Mum has been able to rest and enjoy a break.