Centre Parcs

We booked a few things for Zoë - Make your own Pizza, Face painting, Teddy Bears Picnic - a massage for Nino and I, and the snooker competion for me and then spent the rest of our first day just wandering around exploring before cooking for ourselves in our apartment the first night.

Next day, after feeding the rabbits and ducks again, we let Zoë experience some of the various playgounds around the parc. At lunchtime we went off to 'Luciano's' pizza and Italian restaurant where Zo really enjoyed making her own pizza - and eating it! In fact Saturday lunchtime was a very easy lunchtime as she put all the things she likes on the pizza and eat as much of it as she could. In the afternoon, she had her face painted as a tiger whilst Nino had her massage and I watched Man United on tv. We all had an Indian dinner (which was very nice if a little expensive) in the evening to top off a really good day.

Sunday saw us all in the swimming pool by 10:30 which we all really enjoyed although our session was cut short by the pool being swiftly emptied by the lifeguards. It seemed that some delightful little child had poohed in the pool so it was 'unsafe' for swimming for a couple of hours until the water had been filtered and exchanged! So after playing around in the kids pools and a large ice cream, we went to get blow dried in a giant family drier, get changed, then off we went to the Teddy Bears picnic. Zoë met a giant bear named Baxter and it seemed all the kids enjoyed meeting him, singing sings, listening to stories and eating rubbish!

I played in the Snooker tournament later in the day - badly to my eyes. My rustiness with the cue quite evident - still, it's around 10 years since I was a regular player. I came third which sounds OK but with only four of us in the competition I could also say that I was last but one!

Monday we were off home. I had a massage booked for 12:00 so Nino and Zoë went collecting pine cones and mushrooms before we left to spend the afternoon in Keswick and have lunch at Brysons, a bakery and tea rooms that Debbie, a friend of Nino's, is looking to take over soon. It was a good weekend for all of us and maybe something we should do again next year.