We should not have opted for chess. It was late, everyone was tired, we hadn't had dinner.
It became clear that not one of us is competent enough to ensure a fun family game in a reasonable time frame.
I printed out a Dummies Guide for each team but we still had to keep googling the more complex rules - eg: when pawns reach the far side of the board what can they be promoted to? I've never heard of the En Passant rule either; I'm convinced W & I would have been triumphant if we'd known about it earlier...
Anyway, we gave it our best shot, and ended up with S & K's white queen + king chasing our black king around the board with all other pieces captured. After 20 minutes of W & I gallantly evading capture, one gruelling space at a time, we called it a day. There may be an official name for it (stale mate?) but we'll just call it Boredom 1, Chess 0.
We were young (OK, not that young), we were crazy. We were riding high on an amazing week and a fantastic afternoon swimming. We took on too much, too soon - we reached for the stars and got stuck about half way up a ladder.
Speaking of which, we'll be back to snakes and ladders next Sunday.
