Murder at Moyvalley

Whether it was the excitement of winning the pub quiz the night before or the alcohol, it was a bleary eye start for our trip to Ireland for my cousin's wedding. Getting to Gatwick was no problem by train though our first experience of cheap-skates, Ryan Air raised our eyebrows at the baggage over-weight cost. We shifted some stuff into our hand luggage to get it under 15kg.

Touchdown in Dublin and we quickly realised that time had not allowed any potential sight-seeing with the logistics of the car hire. The airport is expanding with a new terminal so its roadworks everywhere. Still it was nice to hear everyone talking like Boyzone. We got slightly lost driving our under-powered Pug 308 trying to find the M50, twinned with the M25 as everyone in the local area decided to leave work early and enjoy the roasting sunshine.

We avoided the toll roads for Moyvalley admiring the grass which is proven greener than the UK and arrived at the hotel's enormous grounds and golf resort. After fighting the rushhour traffic. a mile's worth of driveway and the scheduled start of 6:30pm we were keen to have some sort of rest and get ready. So being told at check in that our room key had already been taken and no way to contact whoever took it gave the start of the eveving a bit of stressful start. Eventually we found Dee, George's soon to be wife who found us the proper room plus news of the delayed start of the evening.

Everyone had made the effort with perhaps a little more enthusiasm from our side of the family. George introduced me to his mate who was playing the inspector who would lead the murder mystery. George's character was due to be arrested by myself, PC Coppit but escapes us. We play act trying to find him then he 'dies' in front of everyone. We all pretend that we can't lift his 'corpse' then crack up in the other room before returning to finding out who murdered/poisoned him.

Here, the real challenge of The Last Gasp starts for a perfect ice-breaker between the two families and set of friends. My character seems to be hassled by everyone and their dog being the policeman and people try to either bribe me with clues or information as a second level of game to earn money as well as the whodunit aspect. My two aunts throw themselves into their role, there's Dr. Hammer who seems to be the main suspect due to the drug element, whilst Kerry finds out she was the deceased's ex-wife and having an affair with the soon-to-be father-in-law.

After a couple of announced clues to help us along and an excellent 3 course meal, everyone is starting to flag from the complicated rules. My partner in detection compares it to the Dusty Bin's 3-2-1 TV show which rings true when the solution's read out with only Ted Rogers himself would understand. Still, everyone had mingled sucessfully and had got themselves tanked up for the singalong in the downstairs bar.

George had brought along his brand new Slim PS3 and plugged in SingStar for some duet fun. The teenage twins Alex and Chloe were first on whereas only Moloko's 'Sing it back' and Pretenders 'Brass in pocket' could get Kerry and me sing at out top of our voices (as well as the dozen so vodkas inside us).