Why I've at last agreed to buy my kids an Xbox

The bemused assistant in the computer game shop looks at me and then at my husband and then back at me,

Hmmmm, I can sense that he can't believe we don't know. In this day and age.

I can feel a whoosh of embarrassment sweeping over me. My faces turns beetroot, my husband notices, giggles and quickly sidles off and pretends to look at games away from the scene of my newly-committed crime.

The assistant, however, takes pity on me and duly explains what an Xbox does and what it does not.

I nod appreciatively trying to take in what he says but all I can remember is feeling a total numpty for not knowing already.

I totally admit it. I am utterly clueless when it comes to computers and gaming. I can switch them on and do the basics but as for what to do next, I pretty much rely on whoever is nearest to me to help.

I can assure you that the only reason I find myself hovering in this shop is because the older of my two children tells me he is "absolutely desperate" for a gaming console for Christmas.

Of course, I have absolutely no idea what on earth he is on about. I have never switched one on let alone played on one before.

It's always been Lego and farm animals before. Now it's all about Xbox and FIFA 14.

So me and the other half decided to investigate the whys and the wherefores, the dos and the do nots of consoles.

You see we don't yet have a console in our house, not really for any other reason than the aforementioned cluelessness.

But I guess there is also a little tiny bit of me that wanted to leave it as long as possible before I took a leap into the world of consoling.

My children are at an age where they still play imaginative games on their own, with each other and with their friends.

They are still keen to get outside, play football, hunt for earwigs, dig for worms and play goodies and baddies.

It's fun to watch them get immersed in their games, and I suppose I have been slightly reluctant to buy anything that I fear will detract from that.

I remember I spent much of my childhood outdoors playing with my friends and making up games to while away the hours.

I remember tugging on my bright yellow and blue roller skates and chaotically blading along the pavement outside my home every night after school.

Playing out was terrific fun. The nearest I came to a games console was playing Chucky Egg.

But the time has finally come to bite the bullet and move with the times. Even my mother who is in her sixties is better versed at computers and social media than me.

And nowadays even the children's homework involves using a tablet or a computer.

So Planet Dunn is about to undergo a bit of a computer renaissance. It's time for us to finally be catapulted into the next century (with a few boundaries, of course).

After all, it could get even more embarrassing having to ask a six-year-old what the computer does let alone a shop assistant.