Fabulous holiday at centerparcs

I have been reminded to blog [waves at M] as just cos there seems to be so much unbloggable at the moment [i don't blog things that i feel are 'owned' by others, and i am fairly certain they wouldnt want in the public domain. these things are currently fairly massive in my life. i also dont blog work, which is being taken over, and we all know how that process works!] there is also lots of lovely life affirming things happening. life does go on, we only live each day once, and although it might be tempting to huddle over farmville or minecraft or our smart phones, we only have today. carpe diem and all that!

so one of the very lovely things we have done is spent the week before easter at centerparcs with my parents and my nephew m and niece e. we have gone to centerparcs a lot with friends, and my mum has always thought this sounded like a great holiday to do althogether. so, uncharacteristically of me, seizing the moment like it was an enormous turnip, i moved heaven and earth to get me 2 days leave to make it a goer! aided by not working weds, fri being a bank holiday and agreeing to work mon, and tues and thurs being in different leave years and some generousness of colleagues . i also sucked it in that the holiday in an easter week costs 5 times that of a january week. somethings are priceless. [tho clearly, i am having to mention it here!] . i got over the fact that they would all arrive before me and that i spent all sunday making food to take [ok, that wasnt a biggie, as i like cooking, and BB helped me, which was lovely ]

it was wonderful . TBH is was absolutely as good as i could have hoped for. the weather was a bit on the chilly side at times, but no torrential rain whilst we were walking about . the kids did pretty well with the no laptops, tho did use sundry other screens for periods of downtime. we all loved swimming – mum went on the rapids a number of times tho i think the lazy river was her fav. she went swimming on all occassions. dad realised the evening swim was quieter and more pleasurable, so came in with us for all the evening swims, but usually stayed somewhere outside with a soft drink for the morning swims. we giggled and laughed, watched and admired and were v v sociable in the pool. M really loved the cyclone, so was good to have DH and SB to be crazy on it! i just love centerparcs

all the kids were really enjoying the swimming. all had new cossies to wear, and SB also loved the look of a bikini [superdry!] and shorts combo in the shop, so as her holiday treat… BB shopped and got a massive nerf gun and lego and a new football.

dad gave each child an activity as a treat, and after much deliberation, BB chose introduction to scuba diving. M and E decided to do that with her. they all really loved it, and all want to do it again at some point. bb certainly came back absolutely raving about the experience. dad and DH went to be photographers. SB decided to do the climbing with adrenaline heights – including a leap of faith etc. She didnt want to do it on her own, so DH volunteered to go as well he ached for at least a week. for her it was the highlight she said. she is so very fit and fearless!

we ate convivially, with plenty of food and treats to sit round the table too. always good to eat and chat together at the end of the day we got some game playing in. a lot of ticket to ride, and camel cup [a game that dh was lured into buying!] and a bit of dixit. Dad taught SB how to play crib, so she enjoyed doing that a fair bit too :)  SB did a little bit of her gcse revision. not really as much as required, but still a good amount. oh, and mum gave me a hudl as my birthday present early! and oops, i have got a little bit hooked on farmville 2 – it is a good distraction!

I’m going to come back with convivial pictures, but we really had a wonderful time, and it was just exactly what we needed

some swimming pics