Failure is the Key to Success

Another slow morning today. At least it’s stopped raining. After people leaving on Fridays had gone and their cars were out of the way, we went went up to the Nature Centre again. We were going to sit in the centre and watch the birds a bit, but as the weather was bright and sunny, we went down to the hide again. After we had been down there a while we came back and went to Forestors’ Inn in the Country Club for lunch. Jo and I had steak and ale pie and the kids had breaded chicken and chips. The waiter we had was the same one we had in Strada last night, I joked we had found him on his day job. The atmosphere in Forestors’ Inn was very relaxed and the food and service was great. The kids had a lot of fun in the play area at Forestors’ Inn and enjoyed their food.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 5

Tags:Center Parcs,Forestors' Inn,Nature Centre,Sherwood Forest

We had another very lazy morning, up late again. It rained a bit before we went out to Pancake House for lunch. Yes, you can see a pattern to lunchtimes forming here. We ended up doing this last year at Elveden Forest.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 4

Tags:Center Parcs,Sherwood Forest,Strada

We went into the guest services this morning and reported the heating problem. Then we crossed the road to Jardin Des Sports, where the kids had their pre-booked activity later today. Again, like most of the other facilities here, it was noticably smaller than its counterpart at Elveden. The kids went and played outside in one of the children’s play areas before went went across to the adventure golf where we played 9 holes.

We had lunch at the Pancake House. We had a table outside as it was looking nice, but part of the way through I thought we were going to have to change table as it looked as if it was imminently going to start raining.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 3

Tags:Center Parcs,Huckleberry's,Sherwood Forest

The obvious choice here would be my Nikon D80, which I’ve had for 7 months now. Don’t get me wrong, I love this camera; it has given me photography back. I’ve probably taken more photos this year, than I have taken in total previously. OK, there have been a high percentage that have been discarded, but that’s the appeal of digital.

Actually, my two most useful pieces of equipment are older than that. I’m talking about my monopod and my camera case. Before I went digital, I was using a 60-300 lens with doubler most of the time. It was a heavy piece of glass and the monopod allowed me the stability without the hassle of a tripod. It is only a cheap Velbon monopod, but it suits me fine. The collapsed length is about 22″ (56cm) including head and it extends to about 66″ (167cm), this is perfect for me as I’m 6′ 1″, much shorter and I’d be bending over to use it. The head has a quick release fitting, so the plate lives on the camera and can be attached in seconds.

Continue reading » My most useful photographic equipment

Tags:lowepro,monopod,nikon d80,toploader 75AW,Velbon

We got up very late this morning after a great sleep. It had been raining overnight and there was still light rain this morning. Just to keep the kids occupied before we got breakfast, I put the telly on. The tv has 13 channels available, BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5, Center Parcs information, Jetix SKY Kids, CBeebies/BBC3, Sky One, Sky News, ITV2, E4 & TMF. Picture quality on some was poor and there was nothing on the Sky One channel.

We went to the Pancake House for lunch and all had sweet pancakes – hmmm, well we are on holiday. I think we timed it about right, we got there just about 12 noon and it soon started filling up. After about 15 minutes it was raining, so we were glad to be inside. The service was great, as were the pancakes. Between us we had Dutch Apple, Banoffee and Chocolate Heaven. It had stopped raining by the time we left, so that was a plus as well.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 2

Tags:Center Parcs,Nature Centre,Sherwood Forest,Strada

We left at just after 9am this morning and had a fairly easy journey. We stopped at Trowell services (J25-J26 M1) where we had drinks and cakes. We arrived at Center Parcs at 11:45. We were very quickly through arrivals where we collected our keys. Then we were off to the car park, this is not as well arranged as Elveden Forest. The car park was full and we spent 15 minutes driving round and round the narrow rows looking for people leaving and avoiding all the other cars doing the same. We eventually found a space and unloaded the bikes. We rode into the village and secured the bikes in one of the many bike parks and walked into the village square.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 1

Tags:Center Parcs,Huckleberry's,Sealy Forest Dreams,Sherwood Forest