Fi Phillips

On Sunday night, my children, my husband and I sat down at the dining table to play a game of Cluedo. We try to make a point of having a family board game most weekends. Sometimes it might be Scrabble, other times Monopoly. It doesn't really matter what we play. The main value of the experience is in coming together, away from gadgets and TV, to concentrate on spending time with each other. Most of the conversation will be centred around the game but we'll also swap stories about the week that has just passed and discuss what might be coming up in the days ahead. As a child, board games, card games, and family gatherings were a regular event. Sometimes it would just be me and my parents (I'm an only child). On other occasions, the neighbours would come in, or for a special night like New Year's Eve, there'd be a party of friends and family filling the house with laughter and chat. Whether there were few of us or many, the gathering would always lead to the tel...

Today is World Storytelling Day, "a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling". The aim is to get as many people as possible around our globe telling and listening to stories, in all languages and forms. You can find the main site here  for details of the day, organised events around the world and how to take part. This year's theme is trees and I thought that the photograph below was appropriate. I saw this wonderful, old, gnarly tree when I was out for a walk with my family last summer. My seven year old son (six at the time) told me that it was the Old Tree of Asgard. We made up stories about it on the way home.