Family choice

My family has started playing a game we like to call Ideas In The Pot. This involves everyone writing down - or drawing - suggestions for fun things to do. We use our colourful felt-tip pens, and sometimes put the list into an actual pot to help us reach a finite amount of options. As we've played this game a few times now, we have a shorter version whereby we simply take turns to tell each other our ideas and just act out throwing them into an imaginary pot. Whichever way we play it, it's proving to be an inclusive and democratic way of planning family time. Be it for an ordinary Saturday or a special holiday - it ensures everyone's choices are taken into consideration.

We played this game just before going on holiday to Wales last week. Here are some of the fun ideas that went in the pot:

Go rock-pooling

Find a secret garden

Have a BBQ on the beach

Make pancakes

Visit a lighthouse

Cross a stream by stepping stones

Try body-boarding

Watch A Room With A View

Go on a cliff walk

Eat chocolate chip Weetabix Minis (chocolate breakfasts are a treat we reserve for holidays)

Go sand-sledging

Explore a ruined castle

Watch Star Wars (Episode IV - A New Hope, obviously)

We all chose ideas with prior knowledge of the location - this being our fourth family holiday in the same place - and I'm pleased to say we got to do most of them.

Of course we found plenty of other fun things to do along the way - some of which will doubtless be chosen for the pot deliberately in the future.

Make a new best friend

Meet some horses

Make potions on the beach

Have a Cowboy Dinner - bangers, beans 'n' bread - as the sun goes down

Paint pebbles on the beach

Listen to lots of Billie Holiday

Make a sand and lolly-stick toy car tunnel

Make a perfect Gin & Tonic

Watch a cricket match in the evening sun

Follow a walk using an OS map

Watch Julie and Julia

Pose Action Man climbing up a stone wall rock-face

So here's to Ideas In The Pot - and holidays of course; I'm already looking forward to our next one.