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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I saw this on Minz’s Cre8Buzz blog today and had to join in:
Q1: What is your first name and what does it mean?
A: Ian – Gaelic form of Johannes, from the Hebrew meaning ‘the Lord is gracious’.
Q2: What is your last name and what does it mean?
A: Hedges. The Hedges surname is one that is ‘locative’, derived from location of abode.
Q3: How old are you?
A: 40.
Q4: Where do you live?
A: Bedfordshire, England.
Q5: Any Hobbies?
A: Photography, Reading, Computers.
Q6: What colour socks are you wearing?
A: Black.
Q7: Club or Bar?
A: Neither.
Q8: What time did you get up this morning?
A: 6:15am.
Q9: When is your birthday?
A: 7th July.
Q10:What is your favourite TV show?
A: Dr Who.
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