Game on!

I'm not 100% sure but I don't remember my family being great game players. I don't just mean board games, although I can't remember us playing Monopoly or anything like that, but more games like charades. We were, as I recall, a family that liked to read together. (And I've no complaints about that!)

My first wife's family, on the other hand, loved playing games. Whenever five or six were gathered together, someone would suggest "How about a game of..." and everyone would think that this was a splendid idea, except me. The funny thing is, though, that once we were playing, I always enjoyed myself. And so it has remained over the years; much like running, I dread the prospect but enjoy it every time. Strange, isn't it?

Anyway, we had decided to have a new year's day party: me, the Minx (who was, of course, the brains behind the event), her daughter, whom we shall refer to as the MiniMinx, and two of my daughters. The MiniMinx was keen that we play a game that she'd enjoyed recently and although I was (predictably) not very enthusiastic, I did, of course, agree to play. The MiniMinx had made the game sheets, an example of which you can see in the photo, and also prepared the Scrabble bag such there was one of each letter contained within. 

And then play began. It's a simple enough game; a letter is drawn from the bag and you have sixty seconds to find an example of each category that starts with that letter. However, if someone finishes before the end of the minute, then the round stops there. At the end you add the scores, gaining a point for each answer or two if you have an answer that no one else has.

It was enormous fun, much more so than I'd expected. The pressure of the countdown can send your mind blank and I felt like I'd gone into some kind of mindlock when I was trying to think of a band beginning with G. (And looking at it now, I shouldn't have been allowed Lapland as a country!)

I don't have any resolutions, as such, but I'd like to play more games like this with the kids. I just need someone to instigate them, and to ignore my odd, curmudgeonly reluctance to take part in something that I evidently enjoy.