The sun was shining and the air was fine… and we were set for another day stuck at home. On days like this we’d normally go for a rampage somewhere outdoors – how on earth were we going to keep the children entertained?
Well, to add a bit of excitement to the day (and to utilise the sizeable collection of cardboard boxes we’d accrued from various deliveries over the past few weeks), I began the day by attempting to build a box fort for the kids. However, I soon gave up in utter frustration. Believe it or not but I’d never made a box fort before (!) and the damn cardboard just wouldn’t do what it wanted. Clearly my creativity and artistic flair is only limited to spreadsheets.
Luckily Megan had a significant level expertise from her childhood when it came to such constructions. Growing up as one of four meant she’d build many a fort in her youth. The construction quickly took shape with a variety of hidey-holes and enough space for a couple of small chairs. It was magnificent!
My one saving grace was the entrance tunnel (the only part I’d managed to build successfully before handing over to Megan). It included a hidden flap making it a secret entrance (albeit also the only way in to the fort, so not really that secretive). And, much to the amusement of the rest of the clan, I was just about able to squeeze down the tunnel and pop out of the hidden flap (scaring Megan in the process).
In hindsight I realised where I went wrong – I didn’t use enough tape. My few small strips of sellotape were never going to hold it all together. Parcel tape reenforced with duct tape were up to the challenge though!
Having failed spectacularly at building a fort, I went on to demonstrate some excellent parenting skills. The sun was shining brightly so I showed the kids how you can use a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays and burn cardboard. And, of course, having shown them this was possible I then absolutely forbade them from trying themselves. Do as I say, not as I do! Genevieve got totally busted hiding in the box fort later in the day trying to scorch a piece of paper – needless to say, the magnifying glass was swiftly confiscated.
The fort provided the perfect setting for a laser gun battle. This mostly involved being chased by James trying to move my gun in to line of sight of where he was shooting – his aim needs a lot of work! After every three or four deaths I’d inevitably end up killings James by accident – this lead to a mini-strop (“you killed me Dad”) but thankfully they were short-lived and we were soon back shooting each other. My misspent youth getting “Top Gun” at Quasar will pay dividends once he’s able to aim more accurately.
Once we were done with the laser guns, the kids wanted to plan BaDoink (which is their adorable word for petanque). Genevieve’s balls tended to be straight at the jack but were thrown far too hard and would generally end up hitting the fence at the back. On the flip side, James’s balls would have near-perfect length but would veer off left or right. Between them there’s the potential for a damn good petanque player!
We then moved on to football (using the fort as a natural obstacle). We’ve got a cute little inflatable goal from Decathlon, and I’m glad the poles aren’t breakable as it took quite a pounding. Genevieve’s got a mean kick on her and she’s accurate to boot! Once they were bored of just scoring goals I set up some dribbling drills, but they were less interested in that – it’s not as much fun as just kicking the ball as hard as possible in to an open net!
James also kept himself generally entertained during the day by running, jumping and crawling all around the garden. Oh to be four years old – the world is such a lot of fun!
The afternoon drew to a calmer end as we played bingo with Grandma Lindsey and Grandad Lawrie. We only had one card each so Grandma Lindsey made sure the kids knew there would only be one winner. However, she had also posted over enough chocolate coins for everyone to win – a very smart move! As the game progressed we ended up with just two tokens left to draw but no full house. The penultimate token was drawn and both Megan and I won… but we used parent-telepathy to make sure neither of us announced it. So when the last token was drawn it meant that everyone was a winner!
There’s one dramatic narrative twist remaining though – it turned out that James had won several goes earlier but hadn’t realised. Thankfully he was too absorbed with his chocolate coins to fully grasp what that meant. Clearly both Megan and I need to pay attention to his card as well as our own in the future.
Dinner was another BBQ – a wonderful way to end the day. Megan had made some delicious burgers from scratch and had also bought some yummy Cumberland sausages. But the BBQ was nearly a disaster. I had three open bags of charcoal with just the dregs left in the bottom – I foolishly lit the BBQ using only these dregs. Of course, all the small bits of charcoal just burnt through exceedingly quickly and left very little heat to cook on. What a rookie error!
Luckily there was just about enough heat to cook the sausages while I partly cooked the burgers in the oven, and I then finished the burgers back on the BBQ to add flavour and char. Thankfully the disaster was averted, but boy did I feel silly.
Once the kids went to bed, Megan and I started watching The Mandalorian on Disney+. It’s rather enjoyable but sadly they’ve not released all the episodes yet – we’ll have to actually show some patience! It’s like a Western set in the world of lightsabers and blasters. Amazing!
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