Tiddlywinks

Hello again! First of all, an apology: having learned from my mistakes when trying to put portrait-orientated photos into the letter about my walks with my father, I very carefully made sure that all the pictures in the Mole Express mail-out yesterday were landscape format, only to have them rotated into portrait mode when the letter went out. Sorry if that made them hard to read, especially if you ended up doing that dance with your phone / tablet where you try to rotate the screen to see better and it just keeps on rotating that picture away from you.  Anyway it was, as mentioned, my birthday yesterday, and I spent much of it in a bikini on the roof terrace. When I mentioned the bikini to a friend over Zoom drinks last night, she was scandalised, rather as if I had decided to mark my birthday by dancing a nude cancan on the sea front. Actually, that's not right. It's more that the friend in question is a full time student with two kids, and right now, sitting outside in a bikini is as impossible a prospect as if I'd said I was spending my birthday on the International Space Station. Even so, I did feel a touch of guilt about the sunbathing, an underlying concern that there is something shameful about having any kind of pleasure while the pandemic rages on. As if there have not been people suffering and dying somewhere every single time I have worn a bikini in my life. Though, one hopes, not as a direct result.  Ten years ago I spent Christmas in a psychiatric hospital where I was being treated for severe anxiety, and every single one of my Christmas presents was soap. There was some variation on the type of soap: bar soap, shower gel, even a particularly luxurious bottle of L'Occitane Lavender Bubble Bath which I still crave now despite not having lived in a flat with a bathtub for seven years. I wasn't ungrateful, but it was rather hilarious to consider the thought process that all my friends and relatives had had to go through, because truly, what is an appropriate gift for someone who is panic-stricken and incarcerated?  This year, my birthday presents, while more diverse, betrayed a similar thought process and resolution. A Kindle, a jigsaw puzzle, some hand cream, and a set of tiddlywinks. Happy birthday! You will be washing your hands a lot and not going outside for quite some time! Again, I am very grateful for all these apt and well-chosen gifts. I mentioned them to a friend in Australia this morning and she had never heard of tiddlywinks. Never heard of tiddlywinks? To elucidate her and others who are unfamiliar, I hand over to Wikipedia:

Tiddlywinks is a game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called "winks", a pot, which is the target, and a collection of "squidgers", which are also discs. Players use a "squidger" (nowadays made of plastic) to shoot a wink into flight by flicking the squidger across the top of a wink and then over its edge, thereby propelling it into the air. The offensive object of the game is to score points by sending your own winks into the pot. The defensive objective of the game is to prevent your opponents from potting their winks by "squopping" them: shooting your own winks to land on top of your opponents' winks. As part of strategic gameplay, players often attempt to squop their opponents' winks and develop, maintain and break up large piles of winks.  Tiddlywinks is sometimes considered a simple-minded, frivolous children's game, rather than a strategic, adult game. However, the modern competitive adult game of tiddlywinks made a strong comeback at the University of Cambridge in 1955. The modern game uses far more complex rules and a consistent set of high-grade equipment.

Clear? If not, or if your interest has been piqued, the full Wikipedia Tiddlywinks page is a mine of further information, including terminology (know your gromp from your boondock!), history (was the time that Prince Philip and the Goons took on (and lost to) Cambridge University ever immortalised in The Crown?) and even a rather lovely 'Tiddley Winks' painting by William Somerville Shanks.  Here (with apologies for any bizarre photo orientation from tinyletter) is my consistent set of high-grade equipment: 

With no simple-mindedness or frivolity whatsoever, and indeed, no flat felt mat, I had a great time yesterday playing Tiddlywinks on the roof terrace in my bikini, which was, now I think of it, at least a more appropriate spot for a game than on the International Space Station.

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