Golden Cherries

The sun didn't last long: it made a brief appearance between heavy clouds, and before we'd finished our brunch of savoury scones and goats' cheese accompanied by the first of the golden cherry tomatoes, fine, steady rain had set in. It continued for most of the day. The tomatoes were deliciously tasty compared to the bland supermarket ones we've been eating while impatiently waiting for green tomatoes to ripen.

J and I had arranged to play Outsmarted with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew. It's a quiz game in which pieces are moved around a board, with questions appearing and scores being calculated on the computer. It's particular appeal is that J, who owns the game, can invite people to join it online, allowing her to play remotely with family or friends anywhere. Questions are selected to suit the age of each player, so it's good for families, and question packs are available on a range of topics as well as the standard "pub quiz", "back to school" and the like. J's favourites (because she usually knows the answers) are Art and Artists, Harry Potter and Animated Films, but she mixes one or two of these with other topics to suit her guest players. We set the game to last an hour, and had Zoom open alongside it so that we could chat as we played and afterwards, which makes it a lot more fun and sociable - a good activity for a rainy afternoon, and for scattered families and people like us who are still avoiding indoor socialising.