A short weekend's gaming and other stuff

Still feeling ropey. Sleep cycle and key self-care indicators (medication, feeding and oral hygiene) are all in the red zone. And I've been back incommunicado, which has made getting this post up feel like getting teeth pulled.

Martin found time for his already announced short weekend visit, so that Saturday night and Sunday were occupied with gaming:

• 3 games of Combat Commander (naturally enough!) took us into Sunday's wee small hours and early afternoon.
• We found time for a couple of games of Settlers cards before Sunday dinner.
• Then we rounded off the session with a quick 3 bouts of Ivanhoe.

I cooked too, of course, first doing a delia with sausages braised in red wine sauce (from my mum's old copy of Delia's Complete Illustrated Cookery Course, but you can find a whole lot of Delia's variants on this basic recipie here). This dish had everything I needed as a cook and host that night:

• A comfortingly short list of ingredients entailing the simplest of shopping trips.
• The easiest of cooking methods giving me the most flexibility on the night.
• All the qualities of good comfort food.

I was also pleased to get a chance to use the butcher's Italian sausages which have become my staple when I just can't resist a proper banger!

I've made up the scenario images for the games Martin and I played, so I might post again with more detail. And Badger's due round for another short weekend's gaming with the bank holiday, so there'll no doubt be more Combat Commander to report on soon enough. ;)