Failure is the Key to Success

We had a short break at Center Parcs at Elveden Forest this week. We had booked in for a comfort villa, the same as we had 3 years ago, but the Monday before we went, I had a phone call from Center Parcs offering to upgrade us to an Executive villa. We were moved to a villa 3 doors away from where we originally selected, still an easy walk to the center and a much nicer villa.

You really get the feeling of being in the middle of the countryside, from the moment you get out of the car and walk past the lake to the village center. We had several regular visitors to our patio area on most days including, moorhen, grey squirrels, ducks and ducklings, geese and rabbits.

Although there are several restaurants on the site, we mainly ate at Huck’s Diner and the Pancake House. There is something very holiday like about eating sweet pancakes for lunch.

We planned to visit the Subtropical Swimming Paradise each day, but by Thursday the kids had run out of steam and wanted to stop.

The weather was good while we were there, but there were thunder storms on Wednesday afternoon, while we were swimming and during the night. There were also thunderstorms on Thursday evening while we were eating; I’m not sure if the two things were related, but during this storm, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the restaurant. The staff calmly and efficiently cleared the restaurant. You had to feel for those people swimming, they had to leave the 29.5ºC temperature straight out into the rain. It was a false alarm and we were able to return for rest of the meal.

We went to Joust 2006 at Berkeley Castle today. We left about half past seven and got there just as they were opening at ten.

We did stop off at the Little Chef in Burford for a coffee before we got there, but after over 5 minutes of waiting to be seated, with the staff walking past us and deliberately not catching our eye, we, and several other people waiting, left in disgust.

As I said, we arrived just as they were opening and as we had already got the tickets, we were able to go straight in. We went over to the cake stall and had some homemade cakes to make up for our eariler lack of a stop. I unfortunately managed to pour boiling hot tea across my fingers of my right hand and burn them which was rather sore for the rest of the day.

We bought a variety of things from the various stalls including a Mollenhauer wooden soprano recorder for Jo. We watched the first session of the jousting just after lunch and I used nearly a full film on this alone. We then turned round for the first set of the day from the Mediaeval Baebes. This was excellent, even though they did have a bit of a problem with the sound setup and feedback. I used over a film and a half on just this set. The only drips of rain were during this and it only tried for a couple of minutes. After the concert, I collected the 10th anniversary DVD that I had pre-ordered. They only received the DVDs on Friday, so as they had all been signed, they must have been busy.

We watched the bird of prey display and visited several other displays including Berkeley Castle itself, however as it was such a hot day, it was too hot to spend long inside. The kids had a go at archery and had pony rides in the Children’s Kingdom area before we all sat down for the second set from the Mediaeval Baebes. This was a relaxed set which I think everyone listening enjoyed, even if there was one totally unexpected bit of feedback during Dringo Bell.

We left at quarter to six after spending the whole day. We stopped on the way back at the George Inn on the Bristol Road. This had a excellent children’s play area and the service was lightning fast. It was so quick, that the meal had arrived at the table before Jo got back and told me what we had ordered. The portions were substantial and the food was brilliant. Well worth recommending and we will probably stop there in the future.

Now I just need to get the 4x 36 exposure films developed and scanned, before I can put them up on my gallery. I will probably get them developed next weekend.

There is only a week to go until this year’s Joust at Berkeley Castle. We will probably be going on the Saturday 22nd July. We are looking forward to seeing the Mediaeval Baebes sing again; we’ll try to catch both performances this time, the kids were too tied to see the second one last year.

On 18th September, a new law is due to come into force. This will mean that children under the age of 12 and under 1.5m (about 5′) will have to use a child seat or booster seat. Currently the majority of children over the age of about 6 no longer use a car seat or booster seat and just use the adult seat belt.

After the public consulation which was in favour of retaining the current 3 tier education system, the consultants recommendation to the council was to change to a 2 tier system.

However, this afternoon the County Council voted to retain the existing three tier system and impliment an action plan to improve standards.

Wow, what a thunder storm today on the way home from work. I’ve never driven in weather like it!

There was lightning striking either side, ahead and behind. I kept expecting to see something struck and go up in flames. It was so close there was practically no time between the strikes and the thunder