He is letting you win

My coffee - my hands - Merisi's photo

I know that there are two things in which you are vitally interested – and which I have not talked about for a while.

Firstly – Chess with Lenny. We play three games contemporaneously. Lenny is aggressive and goes in for the quick kill – I am more circumspect and win by attrition.

The score after a year or so is about even – Lenny is probably a bit in front because I am getting old and feeble and he takes advantage of me – as a son should.

Sometimes when I am playing Chess online Cate asks me what I am doing – and I tell her.  Then if she does not become unconscious from sheer boredom she may ask me how I am doing.

Occasionally I may something like ‘I have him on the ropes’ to which her invariable response is ‘he is letting you win’.

And – unsurprisingly – this is the same response Lenny gets from his partner. They both have so little faith in our abilities that they think we cannot win a game of Chess.

But who do they call when there is a light globe that needs replacing – or the bathroom drain is blocked up with THEIR hair.

Secondly – you will be unsurprised to learn that I have stopped my German lessons. After much effort I reached a kindergarten level and can now participate in basic conversations about such things as the weather. OK maybe I am a bit better than that – but not much.

However – the lessons have been paid for and rather than let them go to waste I have – with my German teacher – started French lessons to brush up prior to my trip to Burgundy.

She is not really a French teacher but lived in France for some years so is fluent. She also speaks Russian.

I am not to bad at French so we have an hour of conversation every week. It is all starting to come back and I have hopes of dazzling the Burgundians with my brilliance.