We had planned a beach trip this afternoon but we ended up doing something completely different.

I had grand plans of taking Dearest Son to the beach for the afternoon and getting some wonderful shots of the North Sea to show you its splendour and maybe even a dolphin or two.

We took the car and when we arrived we saw the ‘Shows’ have started to arrive. It’s the Highland Games this weekend and with that comes the Showies as they are known here – fairground attractions to some of you! They usually start arriving the week before the big day (Saturday) but we were surprised to see just how many had already set up shop! We also saw the grassed area is already being used as the car park as the shows take up the original car park space.

Just as we turned in – the heavens opened. It was like something out of a horror film. The sky went such a dark grey, people were grabbing children and running for their lives, car doors were being thrown open as drowned rats jumped inside. It was really quite a sight.

We sat for a minute with the usual question – is it just a shower? It happens.

We decided it wasn’t so headed straight back home. On the way home the sun came out, the rain stopped, then it started again, the sun went away and by the time we got home we couldn’t care less about the weather.

I made a coffee and Dearest Son made some arrangements ie got the box from my room. Then it was ‘Game on’.

We played several rounds of ‘Countdown’ – it’s based on a very popular tv show which I used to watch. One round has you picking random letters, then you have to come up with the longest word you can before the timer runs out. The next round is the ‘numbers’ round. You pick 6 cards at random, one high usually and 5 lower numbers. Then you roll the die 3 times to get an amount and you have to use your 6 numbers to find a way to get to that amount.

Lastly we had the conundrum, which is a 9 letter anagram. Great fun!

After that we played some cards: rummy and good old snap. By then it was nearly dinner time so the afternoon went from damp disaster to gaming goodness. We were very happy with our alternate choice of activity and plan a ‘Connect 4’ tournament very soon!