Brain To Bishop

I rang C in a state of great excitement.

For a long time I have been fearful of Mush Brain, that evil pregnancy induced state of vagueness and general sorry what was that? syndrome.

But now I had proof positive that I could beat it!

Being school holidays my sister in law N had arranged a chess tournament. Slightly reluctantly I agreed to take part.

Chess, you see, is not my game. As a kid I played draughts and Chinese Checkers and a sort of dropping beans in a little wooden pot game. But not chess.

But then, the tournament started and an amazing thing happened and lo…I won ALL my games!
Every single one!

Even the grand final!

At Chess! Chess, I say! Which I only learned to play as a grown up. And is much harder than that game where you drop the little beans in a wooden pot.

Did you hear me C, I shouted down the phone.

Every single game! I was the champion!

And that means I AM NOT IN THE GRIP OF MUSH BRAIN!!!.

How can I be when my focus, concentration and strategy skills are obviously razor sharp?

There was a delicate pause.

But... C said, you were playing against a six year old.

AND a nine year old, AND their mother, I retaliated.

...who was playing in tandem with the four year old, C pointed out.

But it was chess, I whined. Chess is Hard. Some pieces go one way, some pieces go another. And the six year old kept making up rules which sounded like they might be true so I had to keep checking with his mother.

Mmmm said C.

It's not like dropping beans in a little wooden pot, I said crossly. In fact I don't even know if that was a real game, it might just have been me liking the plunkety plunk sounds.

What are you talking about, asked C.




I’d really like to end this post neatly with some sort of witty observation about chess and playing against one’s nephews and so forth but... it all seems suddenly too much for me and my it’s a nice day today and where did I leave my cup of tea?