Domino & Sking

The last weekend I had a tryst with two firsts in my life- the indoor game of Domino and Sking. The best thing was that both came to me unplanned and unexpected.

Domino is a pretty exciting game in which one has to match the points played by the opponent with the goal that one ends up finishing all one's cards before the opponent does. Each card has two parts where the points are dug up. It can be 0-0, 0-1,1-1, 1-2...1-6 and so on. The total number of cards are 28 and four persons can play at a time. One who scores maximum points loses the game but the score should be more than 103. The counting of points starts at 13. The person who scores below that 13, his points are not but is only remembered. If that person continues to score less than 13 each time till three times his points are forgotten. One more rule to add, if there are no cards left of the same value then the game is over and the higher score is counted- the situation is called 'Fish'- perhaps because of the same boat shaped head and tail of that animal.

Sking- there has been a lot of snowfall lately in Russia and winter has struck back of which we thought by last December to be over. This coming back of winter has brought back the cheers on the faces of the winter sport lovers and specially ski-lovers. So a ski-enthuasist proposed that I should go for sking and the whole family put the weight behind. I had done the ice-skating last winter and had really enjoyed it but I was very doubtful about my abilities to ski without learning first. Nevertheless encouraged by my friend I accepted his proposal and gave it a try and the result was not bad. I could not only ski but I skied well even on the slopes in the Sosna forests. It was a pure joy. The snow was falling softly, slowly, silently and the temperature was around -4 degree celcius(warm by Russian standards) and I was amongst the loved ones...what a feeling...what a joy...what a wonder was it!!!

Off course I had my share of falls but they were worth having...