Board games for the bored– it’s fun for all the family

As my regular reader is aware, I am a ridiculously enthusiastic player of board games. This is a generally seen as a rather embarrassing trait by various family members, who tend to disappear as soon as I suggest a game. However, as we all try to find ways of amusing ourselves indoors during this current lockdown, I’m hoping to finally come into my own.

I’m not claiming my immediate family members have embraced my passion when it comes to old fashioned ways of making your own entertainment so far, but I have noticed fewer expressions of alarm when I approach with a board under my arm.

I should stress I don’t even need a board to indulge in certain passing-the-time games. A scrap of paper and a pencil will do for squares; hangman; noughts & crosses or how many words can you make from this one long word etc.

My enjoyment is not down to competitiveness in any way, I just enjoy the playing – unless it’s Scrabble, of course, in which I’ll admit to being fairly competitive when it comes to my pretty much undefeated record. Just saying.

I’m from a family whose greatest claim to fame is that any of us can keep ourselves amused by playing a variety of games for many hours. We had no choice.

We didn’t have a television set until many years after most people and of course, there were no electronic devices such as computers to keep us amused as it was the olden days. We also spent many wet summer holidays in a rented cottage with only a pile of old board games and a pack of cards keeping us from fighting with each other.

On family holidays with any of my siblings and their families now that we’re all grown up, we all still tend to fall back on these childhood habits. If there’s a slight gap in activities or entertainment, a game of Pictionary will appear as if by magic, or a snap quiz will be instigated at the drop of a hat. In-laws and visitors tend to be stoic in the face of such relentless DIY fun.

I can only hope my immediate family can demonstrate such stoicism in the current circumstances.

“

Any of us can keep ourselves amused by playing a variety of games