Cake Construction Entry 2016

Birthday time means cake construction time in our house and, as Kim was over from America for her birthday, it was time for a creation. The rules are you cannot bake, you can only construct.

 

Kim asked for a Harry Potter theme this year, a different turn from last years Little Mermaid theme. I started off with two raspberry sponge cakes.

Which I carved into a basilisk.

I ordered a Harry Potter Lego figurine from eBay ahead of time.

I’m still not really sure why he needs 3 hands.

Then I made my icing green.

The hardest part was coating the cake parts. It was messy!

Then I decorated the basilisk.

Chamber of Secrets eat your heart out. I’ve asked for a robot theme for my cake this year.

Activities & Wildlife

They have a lot of restaurants at Center Parcs and it was only right that we should try them all. We had tasty Indian food and although they were curries, as my beloved deputy sister of my old beloved ward would say, they were the type of curries Indians give their children because they weren’t too spicy haha. Wimp curries.

  

We went to the pancake house.

Still we were stalked by the peacock, I decided he should have a name and as he was a bit of a gangster because he wasn’t afraid of anyone and he was very blingy I decided he should be called Busta Rhymes, Busta for short.

One day we spent with two of my friends from uni that got a day pass to come and hang out with us and I actually won bowling… Amazingly.

Still we were stalked by Busta Rhymes. Busta just loves to admire his own reflection.

One morning we got up pretty early to go on a nature walk thing, the ducklings were still all cuddled up sleeping. All through out our stay I just wanted to pick one up and squish it with love and cute agression.

We fed the ducks on the lake, I decided not to tell our guide about feeding the ducks hotel biscuits or the deer iced doughnuts, he didn’t need to know.

But we did learn that Busta Rhymes the peacock just walked into Center Parcs one day and they’d assumed he’d escaped from somewhere. They didn’t want to buy him a girlfriend because apparently peacocks are very untidy and kick up gravel and sand and stuff. I think Busta Rhymes deserves love. Kim and I researched peacock prices to smuggle him in a girlfriend but they were expensive. If we ever get him one though I’d call it Leann Rimes.

We did some pottery painting one day, Kim said it was her best work yet, I said it was her most expensive work yet.

 

And then Kim kicked my ass at mini golf.

I just suck at golf.

We went to the American restaurant which I always find a bit funny, I wonder if they have English restaurants in America or pretend pubs with union jacks everywhere… Must research this more.

Finally it was time to go home and we had a nice breakfast in the revolving restaurant.

 

The kitties were obviously thrilled to have us back, they’d been taken care of by my friend Tasha who named them black demon one and black demon two.

 

Spa & The Stoat Weasel

During our stay at Center Parcs we frequently saw this one peacock, in fact he could have been stalking us. And like all the Center Parcs animals he had no fear of humans at all and you could get very close to him.

 

One of the days of our stay we went to the spa at Center Parcs which was lovely, we got sorted in the changing rooms where they had these odd lockers where you had to press a wristband on them but they had no numbers on them.

Anyways, the spa was set out in a ring around a big spa pool in the middle and around the ring were small rooms leading into saunas, steam rooms, scented rooms etc. I personally have never enjoyed a sauna, if the air inside my lungs is hot and I get the foreboding sense of death sitting there for a minute then I count the experience as non-enjoyable. I do the like cedar wood smell though.

I liked the zen garden because there was a little stoat (or weasel, Kim and I couldn’t work out the difference) that kept dashing about. The stoat weasel was storing food I think because he carried something in his mouth. But I got to read a magazine on a comfy sofa in a dressing gown which is a win in my books. Also I remembered why I don’t buy magazines when every other page was an advert… Also a win.

There was an ice chip fountain which you were encouraged by a sign to rub over yourself after leaving the sauna to feel invigorated, I decided to pass on this offer but helped throw ice at Kim (I’m nice like that). She did not feel invigorated.

After the spa relaxation we went for a very healthy lunch of burger and chips with large milkshakes.

Of Deer & Doughnuts

Whilst Kim was visiting we took a trip to Center Parcs which is quite near us and Kim had become obsessed with visiting after I’d told her stories about going as a child with my family. We booked quite a few activities as my mum had given us some money for Center Parcs as a wedding gift so we had stuff on every day. We started off with pedalos which were kinda hard to steer actually so we almost mowed down a few ducks.

 

I found a squashed penny machine, I have a collection of squashed pennies so this pleased me greatly. I’m not sure how many I have now come to think of it…

It didn’t come out as the deer though so that was annoying!

Center Parcs was also infested with Pokemon so we had to spend time catching them all because Kim had wifi so she could use her American phone too.

We got a little afternoon tea on our first day too which was very sweet, as we are obsessed with afternoon tea.

We stayed in the lakeview hotel as there was only two of us, it was right next to all the shops and the big pool so we didn’t bother to get bikes because we could walk everywhere.

And when you opened the sliding doors out to your view you could see a ton of geese and ducks and moorhens. I fed them our hotel biscuits which they enjoyed and then we bought a whole big bag of duck food so we fed them that a few times a day. It was duck heaven basically.

At the little grocery shop there we bought giant doughnuts and had some drinks out on the patio.

We then fed lots of the doughnut to our very own little deer who we named beauty because she was gorgeous and she ate bits of doughnut right out of our hands. She enjoyed the duck food too but she liked the doughnuts best… Who’d have thought?

Steam Train Munchies

Before we went home from London we had a super mega breakfast.

And it was free because  the hotel messed up on something and offered us free breakfast and I wasn’t about to say no!

If you eat fruit it’s healthy right?

Anyways, after we got home later that evening we were out again to the Mid Norfolk Railway in Dereham.

It’s a kind of hobby line where volunteers have restored an old disused rail track and a few stations and trains.

So it was pretty cool to take a look around at all the nostalgia and old fashioned signs and things.

We’d booked tickets especially so when we got there we got a little table seat all set up with our drinks and fish and chips we’d pre-ordered.

And then we sat and enjoyed the ride, the slight hiccup being that on the way back the lights had a fault in our carriage so it was a bit dark but we had a good few games of hangman by the torchlight of my phone and everyone cheered when the lights came back on.