For the last 30 years, I’ve enjoyed countless Scrabble matches with my best friend, Cath.
In the old days, when we lived next door to each other, I won my fair share of games, although the most memorable contest was when we were neck-to-neck, with only a few tiles left to play, and Cath’s cat jumped on the board, sending every letter on the board flying.
Nowadays, our Scrabble matches just take place on Bank Holidays as that’s the only time we can get together due to commitments and travelling distance.
I have to admit that for the last decade, I’ve probably only succeeded in winning two or three games against Cath, ever since she took up reading Scrabble dictionaries for pleasure and playing online tournaments.
The game pictured above was the latest friendly battle, which I lost by 10 marks despite my incredible score of 78 on one turn. This is the highest score I’ve ever managed in a single go, but no reason for complacency opposite such a brilliant opponent. The final score was 258/248.
So how about a little weekend challenge for my fellow bloggers? Who can spot the letters responsible for my proud but short-lived moment of glory when I scored that 78?
I tried to figure it out but no luck this early in the morning. 🙂
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If nobody susses it out by next Saturday, I’ll reveal the answer at the foot of this post 🙂
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Well done, Sarah! I’m sure if I showed this to my Scrabble-Queen MiL, she’d have the answer in a jiffy. 🙂 I haven’t played for years.
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I think you’d need a Scrabble board at hand, Sylvia, to check which of the tiles are sitting on double-word and triple-letter scores. It would be quite hard to work out otherwise.
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had a quick look…can’t see it. I really like scrabble…have recently discovered a near neighbour likes scrabble…so now we play about once per week.
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Lucky you, Lilith, getting to play once per week. How often do you win?
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Can’t work it out Sarah – I’m hopeless at Scrabble – considering I’m a writer you’d think I’d be good at it, but I just can’t come up with words to order on a Scrabble board!
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Sometimes we take ages over our turns. My friend was tired when I saw her this last time (yet still won!), and I took so long trying to come up with a clever-clever word combination during one turn that she nodded off in the chair. Maybe if you weren’t under pressure to find a word in a hurry, then you could manage, Andrea. I once played one-minute Scrabble and found it most unedifying.
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I love the anecdote about the cat! Reminds me of my mom on July 4. Quiet early evening inside, and she used her walker to go into the kitchen, pour herself a glass of red wine, put it on her walker to get back to her chair. It takes her quite a while, as she moves very slowly in her older age. Finally, she got settled down in the chair. Put up her feet. Picked up her book. Picked up her glass to take a sip. Suddenly, the first fireworks exploded outside in the nearby town. She involuntarily splashed the wine all over her face and blouse, plus on the book. She thought it was hilarious.
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That’s a very funny story about your mom. I hope she had some white wine at hand to remove the red wine stains. Haven’t tried this myself, but apparently it works.
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Had not heard that, but it’s good to know!!
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Zigs and zooms! Lucky you to have a standing date and old friend across the board. Toni
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Yes, Toni, I’m very lucky to have regular Scrabble get-togethers with my friend. I wouldn’t want to play the game online, as I already spend quite enough time in front of a computer screen with my work.
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I’ve not played Scrabble for year’s, Sarah, and am hopeless at Word games. If I had to guess I’d say the word Zigs?
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Curlews? (About which I know zilch.) My friend Mary, now living long-distance, enjoys Scrabble, too. Actually me also, but the kids don’t like it a lot just yet. They do chess with their dad a bit, tho.
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You can read all about curlews here https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/c/curlew/
And yes, Leigh,”curlews” makes up part of the score but it has an “s” on the end which I added to the end of the word “dab” and turned it into “dabs”, so we have a horizontal word that has used up all my letters, which gives it 50 extra marks on top of its 14 (there’s a triple letter score hidden there as well), plus the vertical word which falls on a double word score.
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I thought curlews too but omg because my eyes are getting bad I though curlieques!! Had to read up on Curlews!
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Time for reading glasses, methinks, Cybele!
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I have them! I just don’t always put them on lol!
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Naughty girl 😉 It’s when you can no longer read the small print on cooking labels and ingredients lists that the real problems can start!
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