My Holiday

The holiday was well thought through, well planned and well prepared. We arrived nice and early with everything we needed and were ready to start the week with a picnic followed by a swim. What could go wrong?

I’ve just got back from a really nice week away. We were all ready for it, stresses at work for us parents and standard end of term tiredness for the kids had stacked up so some quality time together sounded fantastic. We had thought it through and decided we needed something that would not be ruined by the weather, last years camping trip had been such a disaster that we were taking no risks. We wanted something a bit active as both the boys get bored easily and to be fair I’m not a beech man either for a whole week anyway.

And so just over a week ago, we arrived at Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest. I’ve always resisted going to this specific address because it’s so close to Newark. I went to School in Newark and so always felt that going there on holiday would just be too weird. With these feelings put aside we decided to go for it. The sun was shining and we were less than an hour behind schedule on arrival. The queue to check in was short and in no time we were parked up and heading off to investigate.

For any one not knowing how Center Parcs works, here’s the brief. Set in forest locations the holiday village is nestled into the trees with apparent thought and care for maintaining the rest of the forest. The Villas are hidden away and pleasantly private. Then you get a ‘village square’ where shops, restaurants and things are. A big sub tropical swimming pool with slides and hot tubs and things also sit here. Then you have the Sports centre or ‘Jardin de sports’ where you can do anything from 10 pin bowling to Badminton, Climbing Walls, Squash or any number of other things. Further round the park there is Golf, nature centres, Tennis and an adventure centre for tree top fun etc. Apart from the pool, lakeside beech and the play areas ( plenty of those) absolutely nothing is free and highly overpriced but fun.

You are encouraged to arrive before you can get in your villa and stay after checking out because you can use the facilities to extend your holiday; an option we took gladly. Once in your villa you unpack the car and then take it back to the car park, for the rest of your stay you are on foot or bike and apart from on changeover days you really do get some peace and quiet away from any traffic noise.

We parked up and headed off with a picnic. We found a lovely play park and started eating, the kids could eat and play, the sun shined – fantastic. All we had to do was finish the picnic, play for a while then Jo would go to the villa at three with the boys whilst I fetched the car, no worries. At this park though was a swing. Not a normal swing but a contraption that you bounce and swing on at the same time. Daniel loved it and was laughing head off just at the point when his stupid Dad nearly knocked it off for him. I swung him up too high straight into a log thing coming the other way. Instantly I froze, it really was a bad hit. Blood squirted out and Daniel screamed. Quick as a flash I had him down and stopped the bleeding, years of first aid kicking in on auto, but I was shaking. We had to dash to the handy and excellent medical centre where the nurse expertly cleaned him up and took charge. It was no where near as bad as I’d imagined though Dan was shook up enough to feint bless him. Soon he was patched up with Steri-strips and we were packed off & let in the villa early ( result ). There would be no swimming today.

To cut the story short, Dan is fine and was up and about with full steam the next morning at about 5 excited about his first proper day on the Holiday. The rest of the holiday was amazing. I still haven’t forgiven myself though – it was too much of a shock, I nearly wiped him out and it was totally my fault for trying to impress with how high I could swing him. Even now as I write I’m shaking remembering seeing it in slow motion. Lesson learned and for sure it didn’t stop anyone enjoying themselves in the end. Roll on next year …