We played Mystery Rummy before dinner, and Puerto Rico (again at the Bigster’s request) after. Once again, experience told and I lost fairly glaringly. Otto was particularly intrigued by the face-down corpse: “I love dead persons.” – I am not entirely comfortable with that, as my take would have been that he was “sleeping”. I remember the Bigster was obsessed with death at the same age – my mum tells of the day she worked out that “Nanna” was actually Mummy’s mummy. “Where’s your mummy, Nanna?” she asked. Mum equivocated, but Biggie was pretty confident she knew: “Probably she’s dead.”

The end was interesting. Fraser played a scene and dug through the discards, then ummed and ahhed over two cards. Eventually he chose Ripper Strikes, dealing out 5 cards. If he’d chosen Commissioner Resigns, he would have forced me to play the final Victim card and would have won by 20 points or so.

Otto: “Mum, why did Biggie win?”

Me: “Because Daddy chose the wrong card.”

Final results: Fraser 113, Biggie 117, Melissa 97

Puerto Rico was interesting. Biggie followed the same strategy as in the previous game, but Fraser and I got into the action quicker. Even so, the Bigster triggered end of game when we still had 2 empty slots for buildings – and once again, the University paid off for her. Otto took the Role of Banker and passed Roles out to us – often with recommendations. I followed her advice a few times, too.

Final scoring was interesting in the closeness of final numbers but variation in where those numbers came from:

Fraser – 13 VP, 22 points buildings, 6 special = 41

Biggie – 6 VP, 21 points buildings, 12 special = 40

Otto – 3 love hearts ©©© (one from each of us)

Melissa – 22 VP, 22 points buildings = 44. Love that harbour/wharf combo.