Monday

I was going to rush home this afternoon to jump on ROM but it was raining when I left work (I phoned S to check) so I took myself off to Zarraffas instead to have a coffee and put myself in the zone for tonight's challenge. We have decided to go to the Trivia Night at the Southport RSL - a quest fuelled (I fear) more by the prospect of a $5,000 prize pool rather than a thirst for knowledge. I'm not sure but I think it may be N who was the driving force - raising it at the Markets yesterday and saying we should go to check it out ... and once F heard this, he wanted to go at the next available option - this evening. S and I are not averse to a game of trivia (that would be something of an understatement) so it took little encouragement to get us along - even though it is a school night and right at the beginning of the week.

We were glad we went - it was well organised and the people were friendly, and the questions were difficult enough to keep the brain going but not too hard that you didn't have a chance of getting them. There were different categories for each round (10 questions per round, with 6 rounds) and before the game started you had to chose two bonus rounds - for double points.

The beauty of trivia is that there is usually something for everyone - even if it is the opportunity to do really neat writing (an erasable pen helps) in different colours.

I'd like to say the "First Timers" romped in first but the best we could do was tie for second - and then we went into the tie-break question: in what year was the jigsaw puzzle invented? Well, we didn't know what year but we did know it was invented as a way to teach people geography - so we guessed the year - helped by the aforementioned erasable pen. F said 17xx but we weren't sure it was that early (it was!) but we put 1897 and then, going earlier still, just before the host walked over to the table to collect our answer, we changed it to 1857. He looked a little odd as he checked our answer and I thought it must have been that our team and the others had chosen years on either side of the date and he had to do the calculations to work out who was closest. Not so. We think it was because both teams had chosen within one year of each other - and the others' 1858 gave us the point - and a ticket in the draw to win part of the $5000 prize pool - next drawn at the beginning of April. We also received a $30 voucher which will go towards refreshments when we come next week!

Meanwhile, back at Latimers, M was holding down the fort with the furries. I can't imagine how disruptive it must have been when S and I arrived home on our winning high!