this is the third year that we have gone to centerparcs for a january break with friends. more friends than ever also holidayed this year, so there was a home ed camp feel to it as well! SB in particular loved having lots of different friends to go down rapids and flumes with as well as general messing about in the water!
We shared with jax from ‘making it up’ this year, so got to enjoy lots and lots of lovely cuddles with soa, the gorgeous new baby. She is a total delight, and at that bit where she is smiling and laughing and being coy, as well as cooing and burbling – very cute! surprising us all, BB and small really did a good job of playing together the majority of the time, and big and SB had their usual tempestuous relationship – but this is starting to be far more boom than bust as well [which is relieving for me and Jax on the eardrum front! rofl!!] we adults had our chilled, wine enabled evenings after the hurly burly of camp life! we ate well – due to some pre-prep, thus , i think, enabling kids blood sugars to be better managed, and a more peaceful chalet as a result! big ate everything i cooked -so into my good books ! and small was surprised by liking some of it too!!
we mostly swam – surprisingly enough! we enjoy swimming, we enjoy messing about in water, and therefore we enjoy centreparcs! SB is fish like anyway, and was an intermittent visitor as mostly with friends – as mentioned above! i mostly played with BB, who has great confidence in the water, swimming over and under and really enjoying it. we got some zoggs seals that she had great fun with, as well as the noodles. we just loved it! also, whilst swimming, we adults got to chat with each other, share keeping an eye on littlies so we could go down various of the waterchutes and just chill. I really needed a holiday to chill, so this was ideal! i think i prefer elvedon for the pool rather than sherwood, but not a huge lot in it! i missed the salt hot pool, as the outside pool here not so hot, and had the rapids running off it, which BB permanently tempted to go down! I also missed the gentle ‘indoor river’. This year we did have a new ‘gadget’ a ‘nereus’ plastic bag for popping digital cameras in and using in the pool to a depth of 20m. remarkably successful i think! no leakage and the pics far better than i expected – main prob being the children actually staying where put!!
the playparks were enjoyed too, we had a couple of different sessions there, once predom with the deependers, and another predom with the sotp plus assorted other children brought along! and we did a nice cycle en masse round the complex. This was rather great, picking up a few children on the way – glad that B found her bike again – will not suggest here that she takes after her mother tho… Although i did take crafting stuff, we didn’t actually have anytime to do it, as most days we swam 2ce [morn and eve] and parked in the middle, or we did the cycle. we also had a mini birthday celebration for big and e and a meet at starbucks – so v sociable!
on the social front, the families [12 of them!] were divided into 3 areas, so i guess i saw the most of the ones in ours, and the families that we seemed to share a wavelength with for pool visits! so i missed mostly monsterteeny and manorborns [except for their all day endeavour!] and saw more of the portico, puddles, deependers, sotp, babs, jo, lovelyem and a sprinkle of ali!! me ‘n jax socialised out 2 of the nights, and ‘the boys’ 1 night – though they made the most of it, having a games and beer night and getting in at 4am!!
these poor unsocialised home ed kids! As a promise for the difficult sunday, both girls had agreed to do some home ed ‘work’ whilst away, which we did for 2 of the days! though SB did do recorder every day, and don’t think she will have much trouble with the grade 1 pieces. She also read loads of her new books…
so all in all a fab hol!! i will prob think of bits to add, but off to bed [probably!]
group] at how carefully this was done in the main. i think the younger group were aided by being on 4 wanting to do it and 2 adults, to the older groups impatient 6! We started with looking at the beauty of the mackerel, the camouflage elements, and how we thought these might work, at the shape and dynamics of the fish – muscled and bullet shaped, likely to be a fast swimmer we thought. at the various external features – vent, protected eyes and gills, the various fins and the fabulous mouth. Then we started cutting!
