[Holidays] Center Parcs

I've just got back from my latest holiday of the summer. This time I was visiting the Sherwood Forest Center Parcs for 4 days with my family, my girlfriend Ellen, and my brother's girlfriend Rebecca, who was visiting Center Parcs for the first time and seemed to have a great time. We were staying, for the first time, in an executive lodge, which came with a dishwasher (hallelujah!), wi-fi, and a sauna! Sadly we never got to use the latter feature, but we did make good use of the blackboard that was on the wall.

The blackboard after the girls had finished drawing caricatures of all of us. (Credit: David Brown)

It was a really fun weekend, and as usual we crammed it full of activities. Fortunately for us the weather was also glorious; it turns out that England is currently enjoying temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s, with beautiful sunshine and a nice, cooling breeze. So much better than what Scotland has been putting up with for the last month or so! Travelling home again afterwards made the difference particularly noticeable.

On the Friday afternoon the three ladies went for a facial at the spa, whilst my brother James and I went to re-familiarise ourselves with the Sherwood Forest site, and play some pool. We all then went to take part in the family quiz at the sports bar, in which we did rather poorly. Our performance was made up for though by Rebecca's skill at rubbish dancing, which was hilarious and nearly earned us some free drinks.

Saturday saw us up early and hitting the pool for an hour or so. We then went to play badminton before lunch, after which we played snooker, before James and I went to play squash. The ladies were meant to be line-dancing at the same time, but that was unfortunately cancelled. In the evening we went 10-pin bowling before dinner, before the James, Ellen, Rebecca and myself went out to the bar for a drink and a dance (at least for the girls).

The living area of our executive lodge. (Credit: David Brown)

Sunday morning allowed us a bit of a lie in, after which we again played badminton, had some lunch, and then the four 'youngsters' went to play outdoor laser quest. That was brilliant fun, and wasn't as full of small children as we'd initially feared. The four of us then went kayaking, getting very wet but having a great time spraying water at each other. After the that three ladies finally got their line dancing, and James and I played some more squash. In the evening we took advantage of the decent weather to have a barbecue, before Ellen and Rebecca went out for a dance again. When they got back they proceeded to stay up late chatting and drinking wine, which led to two drunken girlfriends, two boyfriends irritable at being woken up, and one mum who really wanted to sleep. Not the greatest early morning ever!

However on Monday everyone was all smiles, and we headed to the pool for a second time before tackling the adventure golf. After lunch at the pancake house we all headed home.

Sauna! Sadly we didn't quite find the time to use it. (Credit: David Brown)

As I said, it was a very busy, very tiring, but supremely fun weekend. Center Parcs is always enjoyable,  particularly since I enjoy playing a lot of the sports that they have available, but I appreciate that for less sporty people like Ellen it can be a bit less entertaining. Everyone seemed to have a good time though. The only downside is that I appear to have pulled the same muscle in both of my thighs, which is currently making stairs and chairs rather a difficult prospect. The things we put ourselves through for sport eh!