Toby and his family picked me up from school and we drove off, straight up the M25 to Elveden Forest. We went for the weekend to Center Parcs as a nice break after mine and Sarah’s exams.
The journey was ok, I was tired so was sleeping for a bit of it, and we got there at about 6. We unpacked and headed straight for the pool. We were in there for almost the whole evening, getting out at 8 o’clock and going to Huck’s, the American-style restaurant in the Village Square. It was a really nice meal. I had a burger with cheese, onion rings and barbecue sauce in! It was amazing. I had really nice pecan pie for pudding. Toby had the classic burger with cheese and bacon and a brownie waffle thing. I didn’t fancy anything particularly rich for pudding.
We went up to the disco lounge thing after food and played a few games of air hockey, before we headed back to go to bed.
Woke up at about half nine on Saturday, although it felt a lot earlier as the curtains were proper blackout ones, so we had no light still. Had a big breakfast and headed off to the hotel as the meeting point for our go-carting. We went off in the minibus to an off-site track. They told us all to put on overalls and gloves (the health and safety was way more than I was used to, as we always go carting in France, who are just like ‘here is a helmet, off you go in your shorts and t-shirt’). It was a bit stupid really that the height limit was only 4 and a half feet tall, but they only had size Large and Extra Large overalls, which drowned me and Sarah. It was quite funny though! We had a quick safety briefing and headed out to our carts before we went out for our 4 qualifying laps. I qualified last, but overtook the person ahead before the first corner. I was doing pretty well until the last corner a couple of laps in, and the girl in front nearly spun so I braked to avoid her and spun myself. I caught up a bit though, before I was spun off by a big bloke overtaking me on the inside of that same corner. Kept going, spun once more because I looked back at Toby who had spun trying to overtake me (mistake). I slowed down a bit though because I didn’t have anyone catching me up or to catch up to. By the end though, I’d caught up Sarah and was trying to take her for the last few laps. It was good; I came 2nd to last! Shame though, I ended up with two large bruises on my back where my spine had been rubbing on the seat through every corner.
We went to the pool again after that, until about 7. We found a big ball in the main pool and started batting it around between Toby, Sarah and me. It was fun, three big blokes turned up and starting trying to get it off us, so it turned into a bit of a game of keep the ball between us and these guys. One kept shouting ‘Oh these girls are quick’ about me and Sarah because we kept beating him to the ball! Toby’s mum and dad joined in too by the end.
We went for dinner to the Sports Café that night. We had a giant plate of nachos between all of us as well as our individual meals. I had spare ribs with that, and it was amazing! I have a bit of a thing for barbecue sauce.. The nachos went really slowly as the plate was huge! We kept buying big rounds of coke throughout the meal, and they were running a Coca Cola competition, where you buy two cokes and get a card, peel off a section and you could win stuff. The prizes were: a Sony entertainment system, a football, a mini ball, a vuvuzela horn thing and free coke. We won coke, a mini ball and a vuvuzela by the end of the night!
We went to play pool after that and had a big tournament between the 5 of us. I won overall I think. At the end I was watching Toby and Sarah play, and he got a little annoyed once I told him the rule that meant he lost when he potted the white ball with the black at the end. I calmed him down though.
We got up a similar time on Sunday to go and play Badminton. I was shattered by the end of it. Toby’s dad is such a good player. He had me running all over the court so much that I couldn’t breathe afterwards.
We had some lunch before we went off to our crossbow lesson. That was great! The instructor was so much fun. We did a game of points and I tied first with another guy that went with 51 points. Then the bloke had us do a ’1-2-3-fire!’ thing, and I got an exact bullseye! So I took that as a win for crossbows!
Once again, we went to the pool up until dinner time, when we went to Bella Italia. I had some really nice pasta with prawns, and we all had yummy ice cream for pudding.
Monday morning was spent packing and taking back the bikes before 10am. We went swimming once again, followed by a nice bit of shopping before we went home.
It was a really nice little holiday, I loved spending so much time as a family with them really. It was cool. Apart from all the bruises I got from the water rapids at the pool, the flumes at the pool and go carting, it was brilliant. I wish I could live there!
awesomeness geek <3