Car games

As I have spent nearly seven hours today, in our car, driving the length of the M4 and beyond, my mind has turned to l...o...n...g... car journeys, and what to do on them.

I don't think as a small child I was a particularly good passenger on long car journeys. Until I got a walkman when I was a teenager, I remember endless hot days in the car driving down the length of France: no air-con, sticky seats, kicking my brother, tight seatbelts, eating sweets and everybody moaning. On one very memorable journey, I spent the entire two days down to the Dordogne reading jokes from the Crack A Joke Book to my family (knock knock, who's there? Frank, Frank who? Frankenstein - he, he he!!!!). How my parents didn't abandon me at a service station I do not know.

By contrast today my own two children were so good. Their new iPods were the main reason for their angelic behaviour - worth every last penny. C played endless games on his and O listened to audiobooks.













We also played some great car games, which we found in a very useful little book called I'm Bored by Suzy Barratt and Polly Beard.

So, my list of things which make long car journeys more bearable is this:

1. Buy your children iPods


2. Buy yourself an iPod
   
3. Only stop at Moto service stations - they have M&S food halls!
   
4. Buy nice fruit juices to drink (see point 3)
   
5. Persuade boyfriend to drive so that you can read books in the passenger seat
   
6. Play some old fashioned parlour games - especially good for traffic jams
   
7. Unpack the next morning