My chequered past

Once upon a time, I was into chess ... not playing it, but the idea of having a larger than life chess set. The local park had one with fibreglass pieces about two feet high and a tiled board you could walk around on. I opted for something more modest, but still larger than life. The board was made from some black and white wall tiles I picked up when working for a tile importer. The pawns were spice jars, emptied of their contents and painted black or white. The knights were Johnnie Walker mini bottles (for some reason I had a few empties lying around), the bishops were the same bottles with painted fishing floats glued on their tops to represent their hats (miters?), the queens were fancy olive oil bottles and the kings were large economy size coffee jars with their lids inverted to make crowns. It all looked pretty impressive from a distance. I don't think I ever played a game on it, but it made an interesting conversation piece in the lounge room (mainly "Wow! Look at all the spice jars, coffee jars and Johnnie Walker bottles! What did you paint them black and white for?"). Sigh.