Last Friday saw the start of our regular weekend trip to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest.
Peg and Jim returned after a two year absence; Robert and Lyn did the organising as usual; Stuart brought shortbread; Louise arrived on Saturday due to illness; and Roger ‘lost his deposit’ due to being in Patagonia.
The site is littered with reindeer at this time of year. The runt in the next picture was soon removed to a hospital ward.
We tried a new game – Football Pool. Quite engaging for the whole family, with Robert opting for his own strange footwear code.
Apart from that there was the usual Hydrobikes, Swimming, Short Tennis, Table Tennis, Line Dancing, Squash, Badminton, Floodlit Tennis, American Pool, etc. Plus of course the ‘normal’ pool in our games room, and a nightly sauna that’s attached to house number 889. And ‘Balderdash’. Not everyone participated in everything (in fact nobody participated in everything) due to a variety of mental and physical ailments …. knees, back, shoulder, brain, gastroenteritis ….etc.
Much good food was consumed, closely monitored by this fat chap.
The firework display on Sunday was very good, albeit I failed to capture the true quality of the event ‘on film’. One of my early Canon digital cameras had a good ‘Fireworks’ setting, but later ones, including my current Lumix, seem to lack that feature. We watched from the beach that features in the top picture.
By Sunday night we were, after the main course of Normandy pork, down to just five active participants. Jim and Peg went home due to a commitment on Monday, and Louise fell ill again. That left a fruit and almond Clafoutis for eight to be shared between five of us. It’s maybe just as well they went home, as we just about managed to scoff the lot!
Earlier in the day we’d spent half an hour in a hide near our house. This was the only time Sue’s camera appeared during the weekend, some of the results of which are shown below. The birds on the feeder are blue tits, a great tit and a coal tit. Scavenging on the ground below were several squirrels, three rabbits, blackbirds, wood pigeons and a moorhen. Scavenging from above was a kestrel, or was it a sparrowhawk? Anyway, it was so quick that it was hard to see whether it succeeded or not. Nearby we saw a tree creeper, bullfinch, jay, carrion crows, woodpecker, swans, Egyptian geese and more.
Before we knew it the weekend slewed to a halt after a swim in the pool on Monday morning. We drove home via Chorley, with Sue driving Louise’s car so that the invalid could be an invalid at home rather than be stuck in Nottinghamshire.
Thanks go to Robert and Lyn for organising.
Our various trips to Center Parcs are recorded here, if anyone has time for some amusement.
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