So as you will now have gathered I am out in France working on the presbytere.
I am not alone, with me is designer, joiner, cabinet maker and old friend Clive and another joiner/cabinet maker who, as he is a little shy, I will call the Kiwi.

This young man (he is close to half my age) seems extremely good at his job and at the end of night one he surprised me by asking if I had a scrabble game as he enjoyed the odd game.
Now I consider myself a bit of an ace in scrabble so was delighted to provide our set.

A little word about scrabble. My friend Michael Waterfield, who played every week with an aunt of his (who had been Noel Coward’s gardener) used to say that any combined score of over five hundred was considered by him and Aunt Patience to be “good”.

The first night I played with the Kiwi our score combined to over six hundred.

He won.

I challenged him to a return the second night.
This time it was neck and neck but again he won by a short head.
Our combined scores added up to just short of seven hundred.

For last night’s match I forswore from alcohol all day and could have been found betimes surreptitiously conning the dictionary.

I played well, I got one score of 80 by getting all my letters out.
My final score was 329.

The Kiwi’s score was just shy of 400.

I may need to resort to underhand tactics.