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Jax Blunt

Charity shop board games – Ingenious, Set and Retsami

18th October 2021 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

I have mentioned regularly on social media how dedicated I am to charity shops. We’re fortunate to have around 10 in relatively easy walking distance, and I visit them a couple of times a week. As well as books and clothing, I look carefully at their games, craft and kids sections. Recently I’ve picked up several good board games, and I thought it might be worth sharing a quick review to try to get me back into blogging.

Most recent purchase was Ingenious from Green Board Games. Bought for the princely sum of £2 in Basic Life Charity, and available for your delight and delectation from a number of sellers on Ebay (affiliate link).

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this played before, possibly at a home ed camp? We didn’t have it though, so I was very happy to see it. My experience with board games is that Green Board Games are a good brand, and I don’t think we’ve had any from there we’ve strongly disliked.

Ingenious board game on stack with books

In play, it borrows from dominos. But the pieces are two hexagons on a tile, and the board has hexagon places. You score by counting up the straight lines leading from where you’ve laid your tile, and across the different colours or shapes as the game continues. A nice twist is that your finishing score is actually taken from your weakest score across the shapes, meaning that you have to strategise to play all the colours as you go. Game is for 2-4 players and there’s a team variant, so plenty of ways to involve the whole family.

ingenious tiles close up with board game in background

At some point recently also picked up a new copy of an old favourite. Many years ago I set up a coop to buy Set in the US and distribute it to families around the country. I think now you can probably buy it on Amazon, though this was the first time I’ve ever seen it in a charity shop. As I’ve no idea where our old copy went, I was pleased to grab a new one, and it’s been played several times since, including at a home ed group session. Again on Ebay, although most of the copies are in the US I’m afraid.

Set, The family game of visual perception

This can be played as a group or as a patience game, and the idea is you have to find the sets. Each attribute must be either all the same, or all different, so you could have all cards with one shape on them, all purple, all solid, but then they’d have to be one of each of the three different shapes. It’s a lot harder to explain than it is to demonstrate.

set game in action

The final game of this review was one completely new to me. Retsami appears to have been designed by someone relatively local to us, but I couldn’t find out much about it. It’s played on a chequered playing board, with pieces not dissimilar to draughts. But there’s also a square spiral that marks the board, and you’re trying to get a piece to the centre. You can be taken by opponents pieces that are behind you, along any straight line, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. There are a few copies of this one on Ebay.

Retsami pieces and board

I might go find the game and get a picture and add it in, as I’m not sure that explanation is doing it much justice.

I think it’s a game with definite potential, but Tigerboy didn’t really cotton on, and didn’t want to play again, so I’ll have to find another opponent. Or bribe him. Whichever.

So there you go, three charity shop games that have been varying success. Do you use charity shops and have any games you’d recommend I should keep an eye out for?

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Filed Under: frugal living, how we do it, Jonny had two apples, review Tagged With: board games, charity shop board games, charity shops

Saturday snippets 31 July 2021

31st July 2021 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

Trying – to build a blogging habit. I have two draft posts from this week that I haven’t managed to complete. Sigh.

Ignoring – last week’s todo list. I can roll it over. That’s a bujo thing, right?

Struggling – with a feeling of extreme deja vu with this home education inquiry /review stuff. What is it about families just getting on with life that gives some politicians such a problem?

Continuing – decluttering.

Planning – activities for the next 5 weeks.

Worrying – about sewing.

Wondering – where to buy a trackball.

Finishing – criminal minds. I feel slightly bereft. Also I have some questions about the finale. There seemed to me to be some serious plot inconsistencies.

Reading – another Shannon Hale, this time the book of a thousand days. Find it at Abe (not currently an affiliate link) also (yes this one is affiliate)

Stopping – writing now, because I want to finish testing the crochet pattern I wrote, and my hand is tingling from writing on my phone.

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Goals /to do this week (25/7)

25th July 2021 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

Volunteer x 2.
Book dentist appts.
Finances. (shudder)
Read (and review) a book.
Continue #MinsGame (work on living room)
Blog post x 3
Pitch collaborations x 2
Exercise x 3
Kentwell costume check.
Move email subscribers to new provider and write up process.
Whiteboard plan next 5 weeks.
Look at book progress so far, brush up pitch.
App development.

(yes, I’m trying to keep myself busy why do you ask?)

Posting for accountability, will post update next weekend.

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Saturday Snippets 24 July 2021

24th July 2021 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

{pondering} getting back to blogging. Partly for me, partly for reasons, partly to see if I can make a living out of if, but should that be here and if not where and round and round in circles I go…

{playing} State of Survival, a zombie game on my phone. With people all round the world. I use discord now. It’s been an odd year.

{feeling} more pain in more places than I care to think about, but can’t stop thinking about, because that’s kind of how pain works. The latest new area to get in on the action is my left foot, which feels oddly bruised in much the way my hands do, and makes getting up and getting going in the morning even more unpleasant than it was before. I don’t know if that’s still indicative of generalised osteoarthritis, it feels very much as though the NHS has ducked out of this whole conversation, and I don’t really know how to pick it up and where to take it from here.

{also feeling} dissatisfied and out of place and slightly frantic about the whole no job situation. My brain is going 19 to the dozen with plans and schemes and I can’t settle on anything. Which is partly why I’ve decided starting blogging again might help. It’s kind of like journalling, but easier on my hands, and I’d rather save hand activity for art stuff if you see what I mean.

{reading} at bedtime, Forest Born by Shannon Hale. It’s the 4th in the Books of Bayern, which we’ve been reading for a while now, because they are so so good. This one has sparked of lots of discussion about right and wrong, and parenting, and personal responsibility, and relationships and all sorts. I highly recommend them, and might write up a separate post on the series. Weirdly only one of them is available on bookshop, so here’s your handy affiliate link.

I’ve looked for them in bookshops too, and haven’t found them, I really don’t know why they aren’t well known. So happy I came across the first in a charity shop though!

{bookpost} this morning I got A different sort of Normal by Abigail Balfe in the post. It looks utterly fascinating. Don’t believe me? Here you go….

This is for the SOULS Who never quite fit in, The odd ones out, The misfits - Told to grow a rhivker skin.

That’s the first page. How could I resist? I was gifted it by a stranger on twitter, as a result of BigGreenBookshop #BuyAStrangerABookDay

Here's an epic #buyastrangerabook offer!@sallylait is offering to buy THREE people a book each.

So, if there is a particular title you've been wanting to get hold of, get in touch.

Do it! https://t.co/1ymwZy9BNi

— Big Green Bookshop (@Biggreenbooks) July 21, 2021

I know I’m going to write a full post on this. I’ve a few books that deserve their own posts in fact, so that might be most of what I write about for a little while. Affiliate link for this book

{plans} I need to start scheduling myself. I’m going to try out a digital download planner I’ve been gifted by EGMDigital on Etsy – I’ll share pictures tomorrow, but here’s your affiliate link if you’d care to explore EGM Digital

{decluttering} currently having some success by playing #MinsGame, though it will surprise no one to hear that I’m not completely following the rules. I haven’t taken a picture every day, and some days I’ve got rid of a lot more than the items suggested for that day, and other days it’s been maybe a little less. But I’m sure I’m on track for the total for the month, which is 1+2+3 and so on, increasing by one each day, through to the end of the month. I’ve been chucking out, recycling, charity shop donating, using Ziffit, Ebay, FB marketplace… so there’s a little money coming in as well as a lot of stuff going out.

{exercising} trying to build a habit of doing a minimal workout, using the interval training concept as discussed in The one minute workout, another charity shop bargain. Today’s workout was actually via the 7 minute workout app, and it offends me greatly that the workout takes 8 minutes something. (Why did you call it a 7 minute workout then??) I found the app again (I’d installed it a little while ago) from this article about the concept, although it also offended me that the workout described in the article isn’t in the app. Or if it is, I didn’t find it. But anyway, I did a workout, go me.

And now I’m aware I’m waffling rather, so I think it’s time to wrap this up.

fake stomach in a bowl

Snapshots
We have a Big mostly home from university for the summer, although she’s actually away this weekend. It’s been rather lovely having her back. (NotSo)SmallTeen is waiting for results, and seeking employment, Smallest is focussing mainly on art, and Tigerboy is focusing mainly on computers, with the occasional foray into educational resources he is finding as I’m reorganising. And so the days go by.

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The secret life of Albert Entwistle #AlbertsPals

26th May 2021 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

Hi folks! So pleased today to be sharing an extract from the Secret Life of Albert Entwistle as one of #AlbertsPals

Enjoy!!

***

He weaved his way through a jumble of steel carts stuffed with sacks of mail. Some of the younger staff were sifting through the letters and parcels, dropping them into grey sacks held open on stands. Albert’s first hurdle was making it past the office of the Delivery Centre Manager. Marjorie Bennett was a loud and chatty fifty-something who seemed to have no filter when it came to asking people about their personal lives – or talking at length about her own. If she wasn’t being indiscreet about her husband’s piles, she was keeping her colleagues abreast of every symptom of her menopause. Today, her office door was wide open as she regaled the cleaner with a detailed description of her hot flushes.
‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘they’re so bad I swear you could fry an egg on my stomach.’

Albert kept his head down and scurried past. He didn’t understand why so many people appeared so comfortable talking about their most intimate experiences. It was clearly something that had been encouraged by celebrity interviews, not to mention the social media that seemed to obsess everyone. Depression, addiction, abuse – nothing seemed off limits any more. But Albert didn’t go in for any of that. He’d survived by keeping the experiences that had most affected him to himself.
Come on, he told himself, time to get on.

Albert headed towards the centre of the vast, strip-lit hall, where each of the postmen and women had their own sorting frame. Semi-circular desks were surrounded by rows and rows of shelves divided into thin slots, one for each address on their round. It would take them the next three and a half hours to sort their mail into the correct sequence of their daily walk, which in Albert’s case was made up of
667 addresses.

He hung up his coat and high-vis cycling vest, trying not to catch the eye of his colleagues.
At the desk to his left, Jack Brew was sipping from a mug of tea and dissecting the latest performance of the town’s football team. Jack was bald-headed, in his fifties, and had so much body hair sprouting from every opening of his clothes that Albert sometimes wondered if he might be part wolf. Jack regularly moaned about his wife, calling her a ‘nag’ when, as far as Albert could make out, all she was trying to do was nice things, such as buying a present for his mother’s birthday or booking their next family holiday. Although, Jack’s treatment of his wife was nothing compared to the roasting he reserved for the manager of Toddington FC.

‘At the end of the day,’ he pronounced, ‘that joker couldn’t run a bath, never mind a football team.’
The men nearby grumbled in agreement, which prompted Jack to run with his theme. At times like this he reminded Albert of his dad. I wonder if that’s why I’ve never really liked him.

Jack was so engrossed in his discussion that he simply raised a hand in greeting. Albert felt his shoulders slacken with relief.

It looked like he was safe from the threat of conversation from the frame behind him too. This was occupied by one of the office’s few postwomen, a young mother called Sue Frinton. Sue was addicted to competitions and, over the years, had won all kinds of prizes, from holidays and a car to a trolley dash around the local branch of Asda and something called a ‘vampire facial’, her explanation of which had made Albert feel queasy. She’d earned her nickname, Tsunami, because she was so disorganised – her sorting frame was always a mess, and she arrived late every morning. She still wasn’t in today, and by the time she did arrive, Albert knew she’d be too flustered to chat. At least I know I can always rely on Tsunami.

The book is by Matt Cain, and is out tomorrow at all bookshops, here’s a handy affiliate link to bookshop if you want to order it.

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