Center Parcs With My Family 4

This is belated as I’ve had a lot on with the big move but these are the last parts of our family trip.

So our last full day we took a nature walk with a park ranger which was fun.

And we swam in the subtropical swimming area (incident free!). Later in the evening we went for a nice dinner and then we went bowling. Bronte and I had the bumpers up, Mum and Charles said they didn’t need the bumpers up until they started bowling gutter balls and then they stopped making fun of our bumpers!

We also had an air hockey tournament which Charles won.

And then the next day we packed up and off we went which was sad because we won’t see each other for a while but we all had such a fun time. I went to Barking on the way home and saw my Auntie Lily and cousin Elaine so that was good to get to see them before I left.

Center Parcs With My Family 3

I meant to post this a few days ago but I’ve been getting over a horrible cold. So back to Center Parcs, the third day my brother and sister treated my mum and I to a pancake house breakfast so we half and halfed a sweet and a savoury pancake.

I added to my squashed penny collection – a vital part of any trip.

And then we went to the massive swim area where we’d been going each day… and that’s where the problems started. We were sat in one of the pool areas with jets and we’d seen this family about on previous days always sort of causing issues but nothing serious like sitting in the middle of one of the water slides for ages and that kind of thing. Anyway so this one guy from this odd family started staring at me and my mum,  not in a flattering way in a really creepy almost angry way and we were just sitting chatting as a family. So after a while he asked me do you have a problem to which I said uhh… yeaaah you keep staring at me and it’s weird so please stop. I have eyes that look where they want to look he shouted…aaand then things escalated and he was shouting at all of us and security had to get involved and then his family were shouting. Anyways… he picked on the wrong family because my family are not the quiet type who let things go. They gave us free coffee and took our statements about what happened and said they’d get back to us so we swam some more.

Then we went to a coffee tasting which was really good actually and we learned more about different coffees and different places they come from.

We got a keep cup and to pick a bag of coffee.

I liked the blonde mix best, Charles liked the strongest coffee of course.

So then after our tasting we spied the dodgy family again and we were thinking oh jeez what next, we were planning on going swimming again in the afternoon so we rang to find out what happened, long story short we got a free spa afternoon with tea and cake and the dodgy family got kicked out of Center Parcs the next day because it turned out they’d already been in a fist fight with another family over a rubber ring! So dodgy family if you’re out there… thanks for the free spa I guess? It would have cost us almost £200!

Center Parcs With My Family 2

As I mentioned in my last post my family and I went to Center Parcs last week. The second day we tried out some miniature golf which as always I lost, I was doing so good until… I wasn’t. Mum and Bronte were getting very competitive but Charles won I think. I get to the point where I’m doing so badly that I just lose the will and start scuttling the ball about one handed like polo minus the horse. It pretty much ends up with the same number of shots as if I played seriously so why not?

We ate out a couple of times whilst we were there and all the restaurants were nice, some were just normal chains you’d find anywhere but some weren’t.

We found a little rabbit on the beach but the poor thing was blind so we think it had myxomatosis which is sad so we got one of the wildlife rangers, hopefully they put the poor thing out of it’s misery or else they starve to death.

We took some bird seed to the ducks a couple of times.

There were still quite a few ducklings about, the ducks didn’t really look after the ducklings very well because they were winding in between our legs quite happily without their parents even seeming interested.

That night we lit our fire to toast some marshmallows, the lady at the shop thought we were mad for buying a fire log in June but I don’t think the marshmallows would have melted so well on a BBQ.

I took this sachet I had called mystical fire and put that on top and it turned all the flames different colours, then we started piling other stuff on there (mainly my brother) to burn and using the marshmallow sticks to poke it which after all is the purpose of any fire. To poke.

Center Parcs With My Family

So the time to my departure from these British Isles is growing ever closer. My mum said that she would come and visit me in Great Yarmouth before I left which as I told her would have been a good idea only I have barely any furniture left and its rapidly diminishing as I try to sell all my things. So then we decided we’d go to a spa hotel… then my mum suggested the spa at Center Parcs… then we decided to take my brother and sister but ditch the spa idea because it was pricey. And thus we ended up at Center Parcs in Woburn as it was pretty much half way between Norfolk and Wiltshire where my family lives.

It’s only 3 years old so everything looked quite modern, here was our villa.

This was the gaming table where I cheated at monopoly and Charles cheated at trivial pursuit because he remembered all the answers.

My sister Bronte and I shared the twin room, I fought her and won the bed nearest the window. They were comfy but I kept sleeping with my mouth open, which I don’t usually do, and waking up with a sore throat.

We had a little patio area and BBQ.

And a little kitchen which Bronte was mainly in charge of.

My mum got the double bed and Charles gallantly volunteered to sleep on the sofa.

We mainly used the outside areas for feeding sessions with our villa babies, this is Pete.

And these are our squirrels who expected breakfast every morning, luckily I brought along two big bags of bird feed.

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?

Home Again

I didn’t want to leave Center Parcs on our last day, we had a nice breakfast at the revolving restaurant there. This was our view when we sat down.

As you can see the view got steadily worse as breakfast progressed but it was a novelty at least.

And then instead of a lovely morning of swimming I had planned we drove home early because the boyfriend didn’t feel well and when we got back we tidied the entire house ready for a house inspection, how rubbish can it get huh? Of course the house inspection person from the letting agency was in and out in two minutes flat. I did unpack and make use of my chalkboard mug from my brother though.

And then today I half heartedly worked on an assignment I have at the moment, and oh isn’t it cumbersome, have had to hand make (by which I mean faff about on paint and power point) these bloody nutritional labels for a zillion foods.

Back to placement tomorrow, and then later work 😦 boooooo I want my holidays back!

Center Parcs – Day Three

We started off today with a deer spotting! I was very excited, the boyfriend less so.

Our lovely friends visited us at Center Parcs today on £30 visitor day passes, Nadine and I started off feeding the ducks chocolate chip brioche.

Then we went on a rather epic bike ride around all the villas which was really beautiful apart from at least three suicidal squirrels that took flying leaps in front of our push bikes. Luckily no one was hurt but we did scream and screech the brakes on a lot.

The boys took their clubs down to the golf course which they said was really good and then we all met up for a pub lunch at Forrester’s Inn.

Then after that we spent absolutely ages swimming in the subtropical pool, we were all really bruised from the rapids afterwards and very pruney but it was great fun. Also I’ve been expanding my squashed penny collection you’ll all be pleased to hear.

Next, we’d reserved for dinner at Huck’s the American style restaurant. It was really tasty. I had mozzarella sticks to start.

The boyfriend got bruschetta.

And Nadine & Phil shared wings which they assured me were tasty.

Next it was the main courses, we were all ridiculously full and the other three ordered a pitcher of Pepsi that was giant.

Tasty; then it was time to say goodbye to our lovely friends, our day went by so fast.

Center Parcs – Day Two

We got up pretty late but I was amused by all the birds outside out room.

And they liked us too.

Especially when I fed them, I gave them a little bit of hot cross bun, part of an apple and a bit of a chocolate croissant.

Then it was time for adventure golf, we had spectators.

I was fairly rubbish as is tradition.

The boyfriend was fairly good as is his tradition.

As you can see I lost rather spectacularly.

It was a little rainy so we looked round some of the shops.

There’s a ton of well known brands to choose from like Fat Face, Superdry, Puma, Cath Kidston, Nike, White Stuff… lots I can’t remember haha.

Lots of sports stuff and swim stuff.

There are a lot of activities to pick from if you want to. The sword fighting looked fun (I’d sword fight the s*!t out of the boyfriend) but it’s more lessons than epic battles sadly.

There’s a lot of restaurants to pick from.

And even a mini supermarket.

With most things that you’d need really, as a lot of people self cater here instead of eating out. We really only brought breakfasts with us as we don’t have a kitchen being in the hotel.

The bakery is pretty good too…

For lunch we went to Dexter’s Kitchen, a fast food type restaurant.

We both had cajun chicken burgers with sweet potato fries, garlic mayo and yogurt dip.

Mmmmmm. We had a bike ride round the lake and then the game was on (til the break of dawn!) for basketball. Obviously I lost as I am terrible but I did improve at cycling from the first day where I was clinging to my wobbling bike as I rode out of the cycle center saying “Ohhh noooo I’ve forgotten how to ride a bike!”.

Then pool, obviously I lost as I am terrible… again (sighhhhh).

Then time for dessert pancakes.

Then we went to the tropical swimming pool for hourssss, we were literally in there for about four hours, it was great. Wasn’t really hungry after our big lunch for a proper dinner. The boyfriend got a baguette and crisps and a cake but I decided on a giant doughnut.