We spent last weekend at Centerparks in Nottinghamshire. For those of you outside the UK or who have never been Centerparks are forest holiday resorts where you can do lots of cycling and all sorts of sports. I have been going regularly for a girls weekend away and we used to take the family once a year but neither things have happened for a few years. However last October we reinstated the girls weekend away and partly because of guilt over that and partly as I wanted something to look forward to in awful Jan I booked a holiday for all of us.

The weather was really good , dry and sunny which was quite amazing considering the previous Monday there had been all the floods. Interestingly that Monday (Jan 21st) is apparently the most depressing day of the year according to some psychologist’s research.

Anyway we had a lovely time cycling, canoeing, boating, swimming, badminton, Pilates, Ellen’s first Spa Experience (now she is 16 and an adult she can do all these wonderful things!) and going on the rapids.

I am not very good with wild water rides but did pluck up the courage to go one time but ended up underwater a bit too much for my liking. I am still testing myself out for the white water rafting as we are having a training weekend in April with the Project Nepal group to do a practise raft and trek and I would like to go on that even if I don’t do the full thing in Nepal.

I would actually have tried again the next day as since I did not drown the first time so was not really likely to the second time when I knew what to expect but it was really packed and there were lots of people landing on other people’s heads. I did pluck up the courage to go down a long covered tube water slide on my own which I thought was good as it was in the dark and quite fast! The fact that there were babies and toddlers going on with their parents gave me courage and I enjoyed it so much I went on four times. There is hope for me yet!

Below are some pics including a couple of all the cute animals I was feeding all weekend – I chose a villa next to the water so that I could feed all the wildlife.