Did you play bingo online over this Christmas period? I did too, and was surprised at the number of people that took a break from friends, families, pets and chores, to indulge in an online flutter and natter.

The camaraderie was particularly great as Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day. Lots of Hi5s and Merry Xmas greeting flying around like so much snow in a gale. Wonderful.

But it wasn’t so great on Boxing Day for me. I turned down the opportunity to go round a friend’s for an organised private game of Bingo, but I thought I’d created a window for myself of 90 minutes when I could log on, relax, and spend some time playing Bingo and catching up with what presents my online Bingo chums had received.

But into every Christmas Yuletide Log, a little woodworm must appear, it seems...

Firstly, there was something wrong with the computer. It only seemed to be opening in “Safe Mode”. Twenty minutes letter, it was obvious this was due to someone having downloaded something they shouldn’t have, and importing a Trojan Horse onto my rig. The only possible candidates for this folly would be the cat, my two sons, the next door neighbours, or me.  The cat was ruled out, and after some interrogation, my youngest son confessed to having downloaded some music from a dodgy site (could have been worse, I guess). A quite blast with anti-virus programme (which had been disabled!) soon cured all ailments, and I logged on to one of my Bingo sites.

Next, there came the smell of something burning from downstairs. One of my boys had decided to warm up the mince pies a bit, but had forgotten them while downloading a patch for Call of Duty Modern Warfare that I’d got him for Christmas. Just then the smoke alarm went off... and I was in the middle of a game. Cursing I left the game on auto-daub, and went to save the house.

There was now only 40 minutes or so left before I had to go and do something else. I settled down... “Dad! The cat’s been sick on the settee!” Indeed it had. And not surprising really as the boys had been feeding him turkey, sausage wrapped in bacon, and meatballs with stuffing. The poor thing had never had anything so rich!

So by the time that incident had been rectified, and the cat duly dispatched to the garden to do the finally purge himself, my window was closed, and I had to log-off, having had barely 10 minutes of Bingo and conversation.

So the moral is that sometimes, it’s actually better and more relaxing to get out of the house to get your fix of Bingo!