I spent my final year at university helping save Princess Peach escape the evil clutches of Bowser. And what did I (Mario) receive for my troubles? A kiss on the nose and a cake!!! I was gutted.

Since then I have avoided computer games in fear of getting hooked and wasting my life away in a darkened room helping the imaginary goodies fight imaginary evil. That was until my husband got Smurfs on the iPad for my eldest Joshua.

I watched Joshua play with his Smurf village, planting crops and building houses. I wasn't interested, how boring can you get? Then one night Joshua was getting called to bed and I offered to harvest his strawberries for him, and so started my latest obsession. The aim of the game is to grow crops, to earn money, to build a village for your Smurfs, with Papa Smurf giving you challenges along the way.

So now it's a joint effort for me and my boy, but it has highlighted some differences between us.

Firstly, I'm not as kind and caring as my son. I like to work the Smurfs day and night to build up my money. I let Josh on the game for two minutes and the money's gone!
Me:   "What have you done Josh?"
Josh: " I've bought some benches."
Me:  "Why would you do that we need more Smurfs so need more houses!"
Josh: " Mummy the Smurfs need somewhere to sit when they are tired - look."
And sure enough a litte blue creature is smiling away having a rest on one of the ridiculously expensive benches that my son has purchased for him and his friends.

Secondly, I can read. This helps when you are carrying out Papa Smurfs challenges. Today I caught Josh removing crops of honeydew melons that I had been instructed to plant. Why was he doing this? "I don't like melons Mummy". I found myself telling him that it was irrelevant whether he likes melons or not, Papa Smurf needs them for a special potion! These are not the words of wisdom I expected to come from my mouth as a mother! So, Josh needs to learn to read, although once again thanks to the smurfs mini baking game he can recognise the words "qualified critic!"

Finally, Josh is even more impatient than I am! And I'm pretty impatient. You see in the land of Smurfs, there are the most wonderful things called Smurfberries. You get a few free here and there, but for true obsessives you can purchase them and use them to buy special things for your village, or speed up the growing process of the crops. I couldn't purchase these even if I wanted to as Joshua would smurf them up the wall. He sits there trying to decide if he should use a Smurfberry to help a blueberry crop grow instantly.
Me:  "No Joshua! They only take 30 seconds it's a waste of a Smurfberry."
Josh: "Oooops my finger slipped Mummy."
Me:  " Twice???!!!"

Joshua and I are Smurf buddies. I try not to get annoyed when he buys them pointless bags of apples because "apples are nice Mummy." It's teaching him about buying and saving, and it's teaching me that my little man is a caring and sensitive little soul that likes to help others. Now I really must go as I have some strawberries to harvest.