Splashing about

unlike some people we didn’t take laptops/internet access devices with us, so did not blog from centreparcs. so this is not going to be a blow by blow account!

we had a fab time. we certainly did A LOT of swimming. our swimming biorhythms seemed to cross across other families, so we saw a lot of our friends in the pool. it was a family holiday with contiguous friends and was very lovely. [ the making it up, deependers, going against the flow and manor borns on the blogring] we had a plan, and it failed, which was for us all to swim before taking the car round to the cabin, but my swimmies were missed out so i left chris and the kids swimming and took the car round, and realised i couldnt unpack it as i didn’t have key to the bike rack. grr! never mind. said hello to all arrivals, and generally chilled! we took one premade meal, and next time would take 2!

we swam on the whole 2ce a day, a morning and late aft/eve. this was in part because we like swimming, we liked swimming in the dark! and because it limited our desire to pay for other activities!! SB is a bit of a water nymph. she and clo went round the slides and rapids countless times. i did go down various, and most impressed with my white sliding, as i had been concerned that all the pool water would exit! i think each child got a fair crack at the attention!! BB got braver and braver in the week, and by the end was ‘diving’ in the shallows sans any life saving devices since she could stand back up. we must go more regularly, as she will i imagine begin to progress towards not quite drowning.
we all enjoyed the indoor river and the waves. the deependers and us were disappointed that our patience was not rewarded in the hot pool though. Michelle deserves a special mention as nose clip finder extraordinaire… oh, and the snow falling on swimming the rapids was apparently cool, but when me and bb got to the hot salt pools to investigate it was just v cold rain!

so, we also did some extras. jo suggested bowling one evening, and we loved that. it was partic good as it had no music track to be too noisy. that our family is fairly hopeless, but enjoyed it. i tore half my thunb nail off – still painful. BB and shannon kept swapping news and info – which was v cute.

SB walking past the aerial adventure was v keen on it. and seeing it reduced from 22 to 15 quid, we gave it a whirl, in fact, clo tagged on too since chris was there to be the adult. they both loved it. i was v proud of SB not giving up when she had difficulty with the spiders web, and getting round. she then had a bit of a wobble facing the zip wire at the end, and i felt for her [being 25 m away in distance and prob 15 in height] but clo whizzed down first, and she felt she could then do it. she was v happy to have done it, but thinks she would like to try just jumping off next time! jo also did it, and we stayed to cheer her round as well.

free activities were cycling, as chris took sb and clo on a cycle tour of cp that lasted some while. considering the mixture of on and off roading they seem to have done, i am surprised they made their way back. bb did a fair bit of cycling on her new bike. but she seems to be using it mostly as a like abike at the moment. my bike had a broke front wheel i am going to buy a bike to encourage a bit of usage!

then there was interaction with friends, games playing and grownup interaction too – mostly at jax ‘n’ tim’s as there were 2 families there. all v lovely. A brief swim and visit by Em, E and R was a treat as well.

bB slept in the car and then all eve, so has been awake till far too late, but we are all of the exhausted persuasion i think. will flickr at some point – ah yes, the camera! we bought a v cheap underwater camera there. it took dire photos, and then wouldn’t delete, so we took it back and got money back. they are on tim’s laptop though, and hopefully he’ll send us them, and we can post the 1 or 2 out of 26 that you can see identifiable shapes on!!

Here is the centreparc photo set