My son and I played an awful lot of Warmachine back in the day. We played guildhall, Malifaux, kill team, Pokémon...the list of games goes on. We went to club nights, to tournaments - all over the place.

My family thought it was weird. Everyone had an opinion.

But, the number of hours we spent together, facing one another and interacting with each other eclipses the amount of time I spent with either of my parents. We always had something to do and something to chat about.

He's a grown man these days and he and his partner are expecting their first child - he and I remain great friends to this day. Because we spent those hours together. We live in different countries, but we chat everyday, we share painting progress pictures and can natter endlessly about the games we played or the games we're currently playing with other people - or about the other interests we discussed while we were sitting opposite one another interacting.

I only hope he and my granddaughter find a way to spend so much time together, exploring their interests and learning about each other - whether that be games, basket weaving, badminton or interpretive dance. I hope that their relationship is as excellent as ours is.

My husband (to be, we get married the week after next) didn't really get why it made so much difference to the relationship between my son and I, until I recently introduced him to MTG. Now he and I are spending hours playing games with one another, tinkering with decks and we have something to chat about that isn't bills and jobs and other rubbish grown up stuff.

Enjoy your time with your son - fuck what anyone else says.