Race For The Prize

Ice on the glasshouse window on Tuesday morning forming gorgeous fern-like patterns

Pilsdon seems to have caught the competition bug. Whenever I glance at the announcements blackboard it has either an upcoming tournament calling for players or the current state of play of some ongoing challenge. So far it’s been limited to table tennis, darts, snooker and pool, but once we’ve tired of these indoor sports we’ll no doubt soon progress onto mud-wrestling, caber-throwing and morris dancing. In that order. Without a change of clothes.

Going into the snooker tournament I carried an unjustifiably heavy burden of expectation on my shoulders as this time last year I had somehow emerged victorious as snooker champion. This time however there are new residents who can actually play the game, and so I crashed and burned in the first round to the eventual second-placed finalist, who generously shared round his prize of a big box of Quality Street (though not the tobacco which came sellotaped to the lid). The competition winner received a trophy which all agreed looked nice but sadly couldn’t be consumed.

The competitive spirit has even entered the genteel Common Room, normally a place of fireside chats and tinkling piano. On Wednesday night I found myself there teaching the card game Canasta to eager participants who then proceeded to beat me and my partner which just goes to show how much luck is involved in the game. Although, as I pointed out the next day, there was no winner as we ended the game before they had reached 5000 points. Anyone who knows Canasta will attest to the fact that scores can swing wildly towards the latter end of a game. (Hmm, that competitive spirit seems to have infected me too.) Teaching the rules was made more lively by the fact that Wendy*, another volunteer, had been brought up playing a vastly different variant of Canasta which was apparently unique to her family, and yet every time I explained a rule that differed from her version she would exclaim in astonishment at how much easier and therefore less fun this game was than hers, and point out how the rules differed thus bewildering the poor learners.

Jenny, Roger and me. Can you guess which is which?

You might think that the gentle art of making marmalade was immune from any such bitter rivalry but not so here.  Last week we had bought a large crate of Seville oranges for this very purpose and so on Monday I recruited Jenny, Roger and Cyrus to help me make a big batch using 12lb of the oranges. That was too much for one pot so we split into teams of two, one pot each, and thus the competition began. Barbed comments were made about the thickness of the other’s peel-cutting. Later after the two pots of golden liquid had been poured into forty jam jars, there were jibes about how ours were setting better than theirs. There was even a hotly contested wager over the spelling of the word “marmalade” (Jenny was terribly upset when the dictionary revealed it is not spelled “marmelade”, and as punishment had to write it out correctly on forty labels). The end result however was entirely delicious. 

There was only one thing which could unite us and that was potatoes. It being Potato Day recently in Bridport, Pilsdon’s garden team made a special trip. Seed potatoes of many hues, shapes and personalities were on display in colour-coded buckets on trestle tables, behind which lurked the potato experts, doling out free advice to all and sundry. I fought through the crowds and bought ten Arran Pilot and ten Majestic for planting on my plot in Wales, while others selected different cultivars for planting at Pilsdon. Here at last we were united in our common love of the humble potato. Although once they’re planted I’m sure there’ll be a certain amount of friendly banter over how well each other’s spuds are sprouting.

Ice like stylised waves on a turbulent sea

*All names made up in this post.