Chess

Chess is very big in this part of the world. Some of you may be familiar with the chess board in this first picture which shows Cathedral Square in Christchurch with the Anglican Cathedral in the background.

Often times when you’re meeting someone in the city centre all you need say is “how ‘bout by the chess board?” and it’s a given that they will know what you mean. The husband of one of Mark’s former grad students says that he has tried playing down in Cathedral Square, but he is usually soundly beaten by “some Russian guy.”

All of the kids know how to play chess, and Mark is quite masterful at it. Mariposa Elementary school has a large scale chess board with which both Margaret and William enjoyed playing. We had a chess set at the first place we stayed in Christchurch and Margaret missed it when we moved to this house. She wanted to save her money for a set of her own and we strongly encouraged her. In fact, we thought it would be especially wonderful to find one that reminded us of this time in New Zealand. Originally we were thinking of a nice New Zealand wood set. We did find one, but the NZ$1000 price tag put us off a bit! So when we found one with kiwis and sheep, shown in the pictures below, she was sold. The set gets daily use and is quite cute to have set up in our family room.