Burnt meat and splinters

Next puzzle party:  Allard Walker’s.   I wrote earlier that Allard had contacted me early on and  invited me to stay with him.  Around a month ago, he sent out an email to the people of MPP to invite them to a BBQ.  The occasion?  My being in  England!  Now how’s that for making a girl feel welcome? 

Allard arrived to pick me up at the campus at 9 as prearranged.  Now Rox was supposed to be waiting in the lobby for him.  No such luck.  Dumb girl slept through the alarm and 3 phone calls.  In my defense though, I was pulled off the roof of the building by the campus police  only 2 hours earlier-did you know you can see stars in the Midlands?

When I finally answered the door, Allard was a gent.  He laughed at my story and gave me 5 minutes to pack up and meet him.  Dumb bum forgot her travel adapters and had to buy more.  Not a big deal in the greater scheme of things. We headed back to Allards and had just enough time  to dump my bag before the guests started to arrive.

I’m a bad bad girl and can’t remember all names. I do remember the faces and the laughs though.  I loved every minute of the day.  First in was Chris, and then came Oli, Russell, Steve, Nigel, Ali, and uhoh….I forgot. Sorry love-your beard was great though.  I’m crap at this.

We started puzzling and playing and chatting.  Allard set up the grill and got his burn on.  I loved it!  Well, no, he didn’t burn anything really.  But the tease was worth it.  Steaks, sausage, lamb…Gill made some potatoes and a salad so there was some green with all that protein. 

As always, you don’t want the food so on to the puzzles.

I saw a purple Revomaze, the Mercury, and a few other metal ones.  A bunch of wooden boxes came out and we got full into puzzling.  I brought down the Berrocal’s I had with me and took them apart for people to play with. 

Somewhere along the way I picked up a splinter from Allard's deck.  Happily it has now worked its way out so I can walk easily again.

We carried on puzzling until around 6 and a few people drifted off.  Gillkindly heated up the left over meat and we had a nice bite to eat before puzzling somemore.  The last people left around 10 and I was a terrible guest. I said I was tired and wanted sleep. 

The next morning Allard took the day off to drive me back to the airport.  Before we left though, there was a lot of puzzling to be done.  We carried on until 11 and then we had to take off.  I think I managed to open another 3 or 4 puzzle boxes. Allard very kindly opened the Stickman Chess set so I could have a look at the mechanism.  I managed to not break any puzzles and this time I left none unsolved. 

Like the last time, it was a wonderful visit.