A Family Road Trip - by Dea Birkett

We’re going on a road trip! I like to say ‘road trip’, as it sounds romantic, like something Jack London might have embarked upon. Not that the nine-year-old twins have ever heard of Jack London. But it does make me feel as if a regular family journey from London to Mayo via Holyhead (again) could be an adventure. And I could possibly be someone other than a middle-aged mum barking at her kids in the back seat.

At least this time we’re going to equip ourselves better than the last. We’ve been roadtesting (ho ho) different bits of kit that could keep us happy when we’re in the car. The first is favoured by Wayne Rooney, also a parent, who used it on a recent flight to South Africa. It’s called the Sound Asleep Pillow, and looks like the sort of thing you find at the end of every bed. But it contains a very clever speaker, so undetectable you can’t feel it at all. There’s also a wire poking out of the pillow’s corner, to connect to your MP3 player. Rest your weary head on the hollowfibre, and you can hear your very own music, if slightly muffled as if being played by fairies. The pillow is marketed for grown ups, but it solved all our family road trip arguments about what music we’re going to play and how loud. And the kids didn’t need earphones, which meant I didn’t need to spend hours untangling them.

The next road trip item the twins tested was the Family Funboard, a lap-sized whiteboard with hangman, noughts and crosses and join-the-dots already drawn on it. It comes with two marker pens which wipe off, so you can challenge your car seat companion over and over again. The twins played 14 games of hangman between Birmingham and Bangor.

Now here’s a tip (but it only works if your backseats have trays). Stick a bit of Velcro on the bottom of the board and to the tray. Then your kids won’t have to keep unbuckling themselves to search for the Family Fun on the car floor. Unfortunately, it took a few hundred miles before I figured that out.

I bet it wouldn’t have taken Jack London that long.

Sound Asleep Pillow

Family Fun Board from Brightminds.co.uk

Irish Ferries