Too wet to go out, too cold to play ball….

Flea in her tent It’s been a busy old week. I had a book deadline, plus a former client snark up (technical term) my websites. So I’ve been typing like mad, trying to rescue my website and attempting to disentangle myself from the client relationship with dignity intact and no bodies in the basement.

As of last night though, my website was finally unlocked, the client has been sent all the handover files, and I was looking forward to a few days off with Flea and the chap.

Except – torrential rain. Ugh.

Flea looked out of the curtains this morning as I lay in bed trying to convince her it wasn’t morning. “It’s a horrible, horrible day.” Pause. “Unless you have Wellingtons.”

So we’ll probably head out this morning for some puddle splashing but when that gets old (after about 10 minutes) we’ll be back indoors. Since Flea doesn’t watch television except for the odd movie, I’m sometimes a bit stuck for indoor activities when the weather’s bad.

Here are Flea’s top three indoor games, but I’d love your recommendations. I suspect my own childhood favourite game of “taking the mattress from Mum and Dad’s bed and riding it down the stairs” may fail 2009 health and safety standards….

Game 1: Camping.
Flea adores camping. This game involves putting lots of toys in to your backpack, and wandering round the house until you find your tent (£6, Ikea, complete bargain). Then you get into the tent and unpack your bag, and make a campfire feast. Mothers are permitted to bring sandwiches, of course.

Game 2: Drawing
Flea also likes drawing. When I say Flea likes drawing, of course what I really mean is “Flea likes to take out tubes of glitter and spread them over the dining table where, it turns out, they can only be removed by sandpaper”. Sometimes, for a change, it means “Flea likes to stick stickers to your newly sanded floorboards where they can only be removed with white spirit.” I HATE drawing.

Game 3: Playmobil
Basically, Playmobil has saved my life. Flea adores Playmobil and can be entertained for an entire day by her little people. She particularly likes knights and pirates (obviously) but she also has a strange habit of taking out all the Playmobil children and one adult, and then making the adult tell every child they are very, very naughty, spanking them and sending them back to bed in the toy box. If a social worker ever sees this role play, I fear bad things might happen.

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