A few long, wet days actually.

And if you’ve driven several hours with the kids to stay near a beach, with not much else on offer, there’s an activity that’s bound to come up at some point.

Depending on your family, it might be the first thing you eagerly turn to.

Or (like mine) it might be a desperate last resort: an activity that we’re unenthused about but get lured into trying again, just in case this time no one will drift off after 15 minutes to bang their head against a wall, or – worse – stomp off crying.

I’m talking about board games.

Or, as my husband calls them, ‘when-you’re-bored games’, because that’s the state you have to be in to consider them.

I’m a little less anti, but my list of acceptable games is very short. They have to be word games (Balderdash, Taboo) for me to be interested; I break out in hives at the mention of Monopoly, and heaven help you if you bring a deck of cards anywhere near me. Strategy games like Settlers of Catan are, naturally, completely beyond the pale.

I know some people avoid board games because they find they get too competitive and end up flipping the table over. 

Others just prefer conversation unencumbered by tedious dice-rolling and waiting for their turn.

In my case, I would just rather read a book, and can’t really understand why everyone else won’t do the same.

But because I am a super-nice mum, I’ll join in the last-resort game (unless it’s Monopoly) until someone starts throwing the dice across the room.

Then I go back to my hammock.

I need to come up with some wet weather activities that will keep us from the dreaded board games, other than betting on flies crawling up a wall or watching the grass grow (which you can now do in real time, at least on the east coast of the country).

Charades? Sing-a-longs? I don’t mind, as long as I can keep surreptitiously reading my book.