It Was Murder, It Was Slaughter

The day in Upper Slaughter starts off with a long meeting in which halfwits debate matters of little or no consequence. This goes on all day, and being a member of the team, I have to endure this torture. Thankfully, during the breaks I can walk out into the little vegetable garden in the backyard of the hotel.

Once the business of the day is wrapped up, I go down to the front lawn where my colleagues are planning to play a peculiarly English game. Thus, I learn the game of croquet, and that I suck at it. Well, to be fair, I sucked at it when I was holding the mallet like a cricket bat, and get way better when I hold it the right way. By then, however, the game, as they say, is over.

Croquet is essentially a turn-based game in which one has to take a solid plastic ball around a court and through specific "gates", hitting with a wooden mallet. The objective is to do it before the others, so one of the things one does along the way is hit others' ball away from their targets. Fun stuff! I'm sure I'll have good fun the next time I play.

After the short game, we set out for a walk through the country. The little hamlet is absolutely, serenely beautiful. The landscape is bottle green, nay, greener still. A small stream runs through the front of the hotel, and there are fish swimming and ducks floating. Not a bad place, Upper Slaughter.