For half an hour or so things are grand, I even find that I am enjoying myself, much to my surprise. But after the initial high of who is buying what, things start to go a little sour. Mikey is using up too much energy trying to purchase all the utility stations on the board. He makes the childish mistake of telling us his strategy and it isn’t long before Maeve buys up the water works and his whole plan now it seems is in jeopardy. I try coaxing Maeve into being a bit softer and to give her brother a break but Maeve I’ve noticed can be quite stubborn, much like her mother, and she refuses to bend. Tears are the inevitable outcome and once one starts it isn’t long before they are all at it and I think that I’m going around the twist.

That’s it, I say, off to bed.

I fold the board in anger and their little green houses and their slightly larger red hotels are mixed up and some of them are scattered now on the coffee table and I feel slightly repulsed by what I have done but I figure that they haven’t left me with any choice. Such is the way with children, there comes a time, and it always comes when you have to make a decision on your feet that you are not putting up with any more nonsense and that enough is enough. As if to put salt into their Monopoly war wounds I instruct them to clean up the mess and I stomp upstairs with the intention of running a bath for them. I’m tempted not to bother as I’m slightly concerned that there will be insufficient hot water for all three of them but they haven’t had a bath in four days now and I worry about hygiene.