Board games or Bored games.

As the nights draw in, my electricity bill goes up, Victoria Wood starts threatening another Christmas special and for some reason my thoughts begin to linger on long family walks followed by cosy afternoon teas - Monopoly board out, a pot of Earl Grey, cucumber sandwiches, a bit of battenbug and a little friendly family banter...

Yuh-huh. Back on Planet Castle I'm sweating away in the kitchen, cooking the Sunday roast and Simon's slumped on the sofa drinking Stella Artois and watching Bond films. Arabella is painting; using every piece of craft equipment she owns - on the dining table that I will shortly need - and my 1 year old son is trying to find a plug socket to stick his wet finger in. Happy days.

Not every Sunday is like this. I did manage to get Simon to go for a walk once. I promised there was a pub at the end. He sulked the entire way and then insisted on getting a taxi back.

It wasn't, therefore, with enormous optimism that I accepted a brand new 'Boggle Flash' game to review recently. Sure, I'd probably enjoy playing it but then I'm easily pleased. You can sit me down with a bag of marbles and as long as there's a competitive element, I'll be - er, in my element. (Note to self. Arabella is five. Beating her at Scrabble is not an achievement.)

Back to Boggle. You will probably remember the original of this. Back in the day, when the only computer game was Donkey Kong, children didn't rule the roost and Simon Cowell had yet to sell his soul to the devil, you might have had one. It had a big perspex dome that you pressed and as it popped up, it agitated all the little lettered dice in it. You then turned over your egg timer and had 30 seconds to make as many words as you could out of the letters you had been given.

Clearly the bods at Boggle have cottoned onto the fact that today’s children will sneer at anything that doesn’t beep, bong, move on its own, or interact with their friends in another room. Bits of paper and an egg timer just ain’t gonna cut it with today’s tech-dependant youth. And so the Boggle Flash was born… and by golly, it’s clever.

You get 5 separate little digital cubes. Each can read the other, and so you arrange the cubes to make the words out of the letters they give you. It will both time you and beep when you make a correct word. There are three games – you can either play alone or with others.

I was most impressed with the quality of the box they come in. It fits easily in a handbag and would be great for going on holiday. Fun for a dinner party too, I think.

The gadget aspect of it entertained my husband. Arabella enjoyed using her alphabet to make words, and I – well I was just happy everyone was sitting down together. Toddler Alex, resolutely suicidal, kept us on our toes by trying to get the coals off the fire. The cat, who is mildly psychopathic, watched in the hope that he would manage. All in all, a pleasant afternoon.

I did think it rather unfair that Simon, by now enjoying himself, managed to score the best word of the day with ‘WALKS’.

The mind boggles.


The Boggle Flash is available from all good toy retailers, starting from around £14.99.

From the Office of Father Christmas....

From the Office of Father Christmas
18th November 2010
Lapland

Dear Arabella

Thank you for your lengthy and comprehensive letter to Santa Claus, which we received last night. We have noted your requests, amongst many other things, for a Nintendo DS, a new bike, an ice-cream maker and a pony.

As you are only five-years old, you will be unfamiliar with the terms ‘credit crunch’ and ‘recession’. Suffice to say, even Lapland are currently feeling the pinch. It is therefore with great regret that I write to tell you that not all items on your list will be available this year. (Or any other bloody year for that matter.)

1. In accordance with conversations we believe you have had with your mother on a daily basis since you were four, you are not to have a Nintendo DS until you are both able and desirous of picking up a book for mere pleasure. Books may not bleep, play music or interact with you, but in them you will find some of the most enjoyable moments of your life. When you can read Winnie the Pooh for yourself, then we will re-open discussions on the delivery of a Yuletide Nintendo DS.

2. Your mother informs us that she already owns an ice-cream maker. No, it doesn’t have a picture of fairies on it, but it really does make ice-cream.

3. You live in a small three-bed semi, around which your father has built The Only Patio Visible From Space. Seriously, there’s no room for a pony.

4. We are delighted to announce that we have shiny new bikes (without stabilizers, as specified) in stock and that one will be delivered, by sleigh, sometime on Christmas Eve. Please ensure that you are asleep from 9pm until 8pm as we will be unable to deliver to awake children. Also, your parents wouldn’t mind a bit of ‘them time’.

In addition to the above, as a good will gesture, we will be delivering an assortment of board-games, arts and crafts materials, books and other expensive play items. We hope these will go someway to recompensing you for your disappointment in not getting a bloody Nintendo DS and a pony.

I should like to take this opportunity on behalf of Santa Claus and all of us here at The Office of Father Christmas, to wish you a Merry Christmas and to thank you for your continued belief in us.

Yours sincerely

The Chief Elf.

PS: Could you kindly let your mother know that with regards to her letter of the 13th November, it will not be possible to arrange for her to win the lottery and that Father Christmas does not dispense Valium.

Trick or Treat or Stand and Deliver?

Oh, crap. It’s Halloween again.

Living on an estate of three-bed semi’s (my God, when did my life become such a cliché?) we don’t just get a handful of trick or treaters. Oh no. Last year I counted over fifty of the little blighters. And each and every one of them requires a small packet of sweets or a miniature chocolate bar.

This doesn’t come cheap. Totting up the potential damage in Tesco’s yesterday, I estimated that I would have to spend a minimum of £10 to ensure I have enough tooth rotting fodder to meet my blackmailers demands – for what else is ‘Trick or Treat’ but an apparently socially accepted command to feed Other People’s Children sweets, or spend the next fortnight washing eggs off your car?

They don’t even bother waiting for the 31st October either. Last year we had two fat kids in plastic masks ring the doorbell the day before. “Trick or Treat?” They grunted.

“Erm, it’s not Halloween yet.” I said, wishing to get the lardy lads off my doorstep as quick as possible so that I could return to Eastenders.

“Yeah, but we’re going to a party tomorrow, so we won’t be able to come round.”

I should have sent them away with a flea in their ear and a lecture on the perils of being overweight, but to my eternal shame I trotted dutifully into my kitchen and ferreted around until I found them a couple of ancient Penguins. (That’s a type of chocolate biscuit by the way - lest my American friends be wondering why I happened to have two very old, aquatic flightless birds living in my larder cupboard.)

You see I take the ‘trick’ threat quite seriously. Up until recently I had a rather nice car on the drive and I didn’t fancy replacing its windscreen wipers.

The parents that escort the droves of children around (and by the way, the costumes get more rubbish by the year too. If you all buy the same things from Tesco, it all becomes a bit pointless. Use some imagination and make something) stand at the entrance to the drive with vapid grins whilst their children order me to hand over goodies or they’ll damage my property. “Say thank you, Kai!” They chirrup, giving me a conspiratorial wink.

“Thank you and f**k off” I mutter.

“What?” A vampire who looks rather too old to be doing this kind of thing gives me a sharp look.

“Er, I said that’s a nasty cough.”

“Oh” He trudges off, plastic pumpkin bucket groaning with junk.

I don’t think people give much thought to the elderly, either. For an eighty-six year old, heaving yourself off the sofa every five minutes to hand over sweets to an unsmiling monosyllabic oik in a skeleton suit can’t be much fun. I’m sure as hell not laughing and I don’t have arthritis.

As much as I would like to blame the Americans for this tawdry yearly horror, the practice does actually have its foundations in a British tradition. ‘Souling’ in England and ‘Guising’ in Scotland and Ireland appear to be the precursors, with poor children being allowed for one night only to embark upon ritual begging for food and cash. This custom was transferred to the States by the 19th Century immigrants and by 1930 had become the ghastly institution that we know now.

Of course, the key word in that paragraph was ‘poor’. Nowadays any child of any background is sent off to pester grown-ups for food they most certainly do not need. And is taking food from strangers really such a good idea? I do not understand why parents, who have spent the other 364 days of the year warning their children not to take sweets from strangers, suddenly find this idea acceptable. It can only be a matter of time before some nutter hands out Mars Bars with hypodermic needles shoved into them.

And yes. I will be saying ‘I told you so.’

Other People's Children. Or in which I lose all my friends.

I have a confession to make. I don’t think it’s going to make me enormously popular but then I don’t think it’s going to come as much of a shock either.

I categorically and unequivocally, cannot abide Other People’s Children.

There. I said it. Wow. I feel like a mule that’s shed it’s load. I’m out of the child-hating closet and I can shout it from the roof tops. “I don’t like Other People’s Children! I only smile and nod because I believe it’s the socially acceptable thing to do! To be honest, I only put up with my own kids because someone’s going to have to help me do the shopping when I’m old and decrepit, why would I like yours?”

Phew. I feel like a new woman. Before you all stalk off to strike me from your Christmas card list (this might be a good moment to say I don’t enjoy smug round-robin Christmas newsletters either. I don’t want to know that little William has just been accepted as the youngest ever lead violin in the National Youth Orchestra – presented with a fiddle my child would simply try to eat it) let me explain a bit.

1. That noise that she has been making repeatedly and loudly for the last half an hour. Not cute. And I seriously doubt that it’s proof that she’s gifted. No, really. I don’t think Mensa are going to be calling anytime soon.
2. Please take that spoon off little Jimmy. If he bashes my antique chest with it one more time I am going to use it to stab him with.
3. It’s Twinkle Twinkle Little bloody Star. Teach her O Mio Babinno Caro and I might be impressed.
4. You appear to be no longer interested in drinking copious amounts of wine. I’m holding your brat entirely responsible for this alarming development in your personality. No, I’m not making more coffee. It’s 2pm and it’s wine time.
5. There. Is. Something. Coming. Out. Of. It’s. Nose. Make. It. Stop.
6. I don’t like wiping other children’s backsides. I don’t liking wiping my own children’s backsides. Truth be told, I find wiping my own something of a chore. Just because I’ve had children does not mean that I, like you, seem to have become immune to the horrors of other people’s excrement. Please ensure you are on hand AT ALL TIMES in case bottom-wiping duties are required. I can’t cope.
7. If your child or children happen to be more intelligent than mine, please keep it to yourself. Otherwise you will rapidly find that I no longer answer my phone and that emails go unanswered.
8. They know I don’t like them. That’s why they scream every time you walk out of the room. They’re like cats. They always recognise the non-cat person. It is not because ‘they don’t know me yet’ and it has nothing to do with ‘not having seen me for a while’. It is because inside their highly tuned, psychic little toddler-skulls they are being alerted to the fact that I not only loathe them but that I will have absolutely no idea what to do should there be a crisis whilst you go to the loo. Take it with you. It’ll be safer.
9. I am utterly and sociapathically unmoved by crying. I can’t help it. There has to be copious amounts of blood for me to switch from mildly irritated to somewhat sympathetic. I wasn’t hugged much as a child.
10. There. Is. Still. Something. Coming. Out. Of. It’s. Nose. And. It’s. Running. Down. His. Lip. Ergh. Ergh. Ergh. ERGH.


It’s nothing personal. If our relationship can tiptoe through the child raising era, I have no doubt that when your child is say, thirty, we’ll get on great; but for the time being please understand, I’m terrified of children and they are terrified of me.

I should probably mention that as a fair woman, I realise that my own children are probably anathema to you. They often are for me. For instance this morning when my son sneezed porridge all over my new… anyway, I digress. You might not like my children. Though I can’t possibly imagine why not. Apart from the bodily function problems they’re pretty much perfect.

Let’s just agree to get a babysitter and go out on the town eh?

'Coping' without Child Benefit. A guide for the 'middle classes'...

There has been much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing from Middle England this week, as news of George Osbourne's Child Benefit reforms hit the headlines.

The decision from the coalition government to stop paying £20.30 per week* to those earning an income of £44,000 or more per annum caused well-heeled Brits up and down the land to spontaneously spit out their organic fairtrade coffee and fling their Guardians down in disgust.

A number of commentators on the Daily Mail website wrote that they 'would not be able to cope' without this cash injection from the state coffers. Well no. I can see how they feel. I mean £20.30... that's Jemima's riding lesson paid for, isn't it?

Having fed and clothed my own family of four for around £20,000 per annum for some years now, I feel the charitable thing to do is to share a few tips with these soon to be poverty stricken souls. With my help, you should manage to make ends meet on £44,000 per year. Should there be much call for my budgeting brilliance, I might write a book.

Guide to 'Coping' on £44,000 per annum.

1. You must resist the urge to buy Cravendale milk. I know it's triple-filtered but I couldn't care less if it was octuple-filtered by virgin maidens in wild-flower meadows on the side of a Swiss hillside - it's milk. Just milk. Buy normal stuff like intelligent people do.

2. I realise you may need a support group for this one, but I'm going to have to ask you to be brave. Repeat after me: "I do not need to buy yoghurts with germs in." That's right my thrifty little friend, Yakult is not a necessity. People have lived long and healthy lives without adding to their good bacterias. Furthermore, given that stomach acid is stronger than car battery acid (fact) not many of the little critters survive the journey into your immaculate tummy anyway. No more Lactobacillus casei. I promise you, life will continue as normal without them.

3. Fabric conditioners that purport to smell of Black Diamonds no longer have a place on your shopping list. Buy the supermarket one that smells of synthetic lilacs. You may not realise this (and I realise it's going to be a shock) but diamonds don't actually smell of anything. Not even black ones. You've been had.

4. Your bottom will cope without quilted loo roll.

5. Mash your own potatoes. It's good exercise.

6. Chop your own carrots. They actually taste better.

7. Five tv channels is enough. You can even have around eighty channels of mind-numbing boredom for the price of a free-view box. You don't need Sky in your life. If there's nothing on... read a book.

Any others I've forgotten? Feel free to add your own below.

The small matter of my impending death.

I appear to have contracted Man Flu.

Not only do I ache all over, I have an overwhelming need to tell everyone about it. Given my compulsion to groan theatrically every time I move, I’m pretty sure that it’s the same illness my husband had last week. Not as bad of course (I’d never be stupid enough to go into competitive illness with a man – nope, theirs is always worse) but I’m still feeling very frail.

I have only managed to crawl from my sick-bed to the computer as Simon is at work and the baby has to be watched. If I break off suddenly mid-blog-post, you know what’s happened. For the record, I should like my gravestone to read “I Told You I Was Ill”. Like Spike Milligan.

As I may well be dying, this seems the perfect moment to mention another little thing that is bothering me. My novel, Simon’s Choice, has sold approximately – oh yes, that’s right – bugger all. Despite the reviews being gold plated, I’m just not shifting books.

Clearly my death is going to be very hard on my children and there will be funeral expenses. New Orleans jazz funeral bands are expensive to fly over from the States and the hire of six prancing black carriage horses with black plumes does not come cheap. Furthermore, I hear Elton John charges quite a lot for singing that song about candles and wind and stuff.

Therefore, I’d be much appreciative if all you lovely people could toddle over to Amazon.com and buy my book. I don’t suggest you get it from Amazon.co.uk, who have lost the plot and are charging £22.50 for it – which is far too much. Instead, should you be in the UK and fancy it, send me an email and I will attempt to sign one and have it posted to you, all for the bargain cost of £12. (Postage included.) The handwriting may be a little shaky but on the other hand, if I die, you should double your money when the book’s value rockets.

I am going to expend my last whisper of energy by putting links below. Should you for any moment have doubts about buying the novel critics have called ‘unputdownable’. ‘the next Jodie Picoult’ and ‘the best book I have ever read’ (yes, seriously. I was snorting into my coffee too) then picture the forlorn little faces of my children as they stand in rags by my graveside, wondering where their next meal will come from and whether the cat will fit in the slow-cooker.

Forgive me, dear reader. My strength is failing me. I must shuffle back to the sofa and watch Desperate Housewife reruns. Remember that I loved you all. Or I loved the ones that bought my book, anyhow.

HOW TO BUY ‘THE MOST IMPORTANT BRITISH NOVEL SINCE DU-MAURIER’S REBECCA’. (Okay, I made that last one up.)

http://www.amazon.com/Simons-Choice-How-father-ever/dp/1453681795/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285676619&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Simons-Choice-ebook/dp/B003VS0DWI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285676664&sr=1-1

Or EMAIL – mrscharlottecastle (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk

In which your heroine turns 30 and has a terrible row with her mother....

Let us deal quickly with the birthday.

I enjoyed it.

I remember some of it.

I swear it took me longer to recover from it.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't take any of my clothes off in public - though considering my husband's insistance that I passed out in our hotel bedroom "way before he came up" I'm impressed that I still managed to wake up with my knickers hanging off the dainty and tasteful chandelier in our bedroom. Perhaps I treated myself to a striptease of myself? No wonder I passed out... probably in horror.

I should probably mention, as per recommendations from my lawyers, that I have never met that goat, either previously or during my bithday party celebrations.

So - here I am. A bit older, my liver a bit more scarred, much fatter, possibly a bit wiser (do not, for instance, drink Sambuca after three double Courvoisiers) somewhat wrinklier and, well... a bit more at peace with myself, actually.

Yeah - I know. You're not here to listen to me having a good time. You want misery. A little angst. And I'm just the girl to give it.

Yet... here I am, poised to tell you of the dreadful row I've had with my mum and suddenly... I seem unable to bother. I keep rolling my eyes and shrugging my shoulders. My fingers refuse to dart across the keyboard in excited irritation.

Do you know what?

Perhaps I really did grow up.