"Where's The Bloody Tea Room?"

The National Trust-themed Monopoly board

Dressed in metaphorical cagoules and wellington boots, the first Monopoly Club meeting of the year saw us visiting (and purchasing and developing) National Trust properties around the British Isles.

After our last game at Christmas, Rachel had chosen the National Trust-themed board from Pete's extensive catalogue of quirky Monopoly iterations.

This also meant she got to pick first when it came to choosing game tokens and Rachel plumped for the iron, which turned out to be a right bugger to spot when it was being moved around the photographically-illustrated playing surface.

Our Tokens: the only one unique to this set was a wheelbarrow and none of us chose that one

Clare was the thimble, Pete was the race car and I was the dog.

At first, I felt I was doing quite well, accumulating a small portfolio of linked properties that allowed me to build the first Visitor Centres (this game's take on hotels), but alas my hubris was my downfall.

The start of my property empire... and, pretty soon, the end also!

I was focused on my standard tactic of trying to buy up the sets on either side of the "Go" square, but this meant I wasn't focussed on the bigger picture.

Property rich and cash poor is never a great state to be in, and employing Pete's "speed die" to keep the game moving, meant I was soon facing bills I just couldn't afford to pay. My property empire crumbled and I was out.

And I'm out of the picture, leaving Pete, Clare and Rachel to fight over the board

A little while later Pete went bankrupt as well, leaving a stalemate between Clare and Rachel.

The board was awash with the red "Visitor Centres", with only a few of the green "Holiday Homes" still in play.

Cash was flowing across the table in both directions for a long time with neither player really gaining much ground, although Clare seemingly holding the largest number of properties we have yet witnessed in our games.

By the time we called it a night, Clare owned a substantial chunk of the board

Eventually as the clock struck 11pm, it was agreed to call it a draw and let the ladies share the points for first place (four points each, as we did last month when Pete and I called it a draw, instead of the usual five points for the overall winner).

You can see on the table below that Clare has jumped over me into second place and Rachel, while still in fourth place, is closing the gap on me from the other direction.

As Pete would later point out, Clare is now in a very strong position as she has a game in hand.

The general consensus was that the National Trust board was "okay", but except for some wordage changes on the "chance" and "community chest" cards, the addition of the wheelbarrow, and, of course, the properties themselves there wasn't that much difference from the standard, vanilla Monopoly.

It was felt that if the game had really wanted to emulate the National Trust experience it should have featured "tea rooms" at some point, as these are often the highlight for many a British person visiting these locales in reality. 

In fact, it's a bit of a cliché but many people - especially season ticket holders - will pop in to National Trust properties just for a cream tea in the Tea Room!

While the final conflict was being fought around the board, Pete and I were researching other Monopoly variants on Amazon, with a Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory iteration catching my eye.

The trouble with that one was that players were purchasing a mixture of "people" and "places" (locations around The Chocolate Factory, as seen in the classic 1971 Gene Wilder version of the story).

Generally, we're quite old school and prefer versions where you are buying locations, but can sometimes justify the switch to putting together a team of people. However, on superficial inspection this mixing of both styles didn't sit right with us.

Next month's board theme was my choice and we're going globe trotting and treasure hunting with the Indiana Jones Monopoly set.