We discovered a very good pastime over Christmas, it's called cards.
Apparently they've been around for years, there are four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs, and...can't remember the other one.
To be serious, I have always wanted to get into card games because often, when their mum is out, I'm working away in the office, the boys are home and they're into their own stuff (Nintendo or X Box, TV, whatever) and we can go a whole day without speaking to each other.
Many's the time I've emerged from the office into a darkened house. They haven't bothered switching on lights, just kept on clicking their consoles.
It's coming up to the football season, and I've coached one or the other for the last few years, so we're coming into an active period, but not a particularly "together" period, as I spend my coaching time roaring at fourteen adolescents, one of whom just happens to be my kid.
Over the Christmas period, the two friends we visited taught us a number of card games, and now the boys are keen to continue the experience.
I'm hoping to extend the experiment and take us all the way back to Jane Austen, with parlour games, recitals and singing around the piano.
