Holiday: Center Parcs

Five days at Center Parcs Whinfell forest.  Yes we visited every day in the pool but did plenty of other things as well.  Among them the pottery painting and a ropes course.

Great place and particularly good at the moment when we can go during term time before Lewis starts school.

Holiday: Dalbeattie weekend

A weekend break in Dumfries and Galloway was just what we needed.  To be frank the weather sucked but we were mainly there because two of the best destinations for kids are in the area: Cream ‘o Galloway & the Cocoabean Factory.

 

Review of 2013

Previously: review of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, here is the summary of my blog posts 2013… as ever please note this is only to help me remember things I really don’t know why anyone else would be interested:

MOVIES (cinema)

• Jan: Jack Reacher
  
• March: Arbitrage

RESTAURANTS, blogged about (I don’t blog about every restaurant anymore)…

• March: BiBi Cantina
  

BOOKS read this year….

• Jan: David Baldacci “Hour Game”
• Jan: Denis Avey “The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz”
  
• March: Stuart MacBride “Dark Blood”
• March: Stuart Woods “Lucid Intervals”
• April: Stuart Woods “Bel-Air Dead”
• April: Stuart Woods “Son of Stone”
• June: Stuart Woods “DC Dead”
• October: Peter May “The Blackhouse”

Holidays…

• June: Isle of Lewis
• November: Crieff Hydro

Other Highlights:

• April: Son
• July: Started Cycling to Work
• Sept: Lewis Dedication

Running Totals:

• 2009 – 23 books – 6 Movies – 4 gigs
• 2010 – 33 books – 13 Movies – 10 gigs – 6 restaurants – 4 holidays
• 2011 – 18 books – 2 Movies – 3 gigs – 1 restaurants – 3 holidays
• 2012 – 16 books – 7 Movies – 3 gigs – 3 restaurants – 4 holidays
• 2013 – 8 books – 2 Movies – 0 gigs – 1 restaurant – 2 holidays – Plus 1 son who is wonderful!

Review of 2012

Following reviews of 2011, 2010, and 2009… here is the summary of my blog posts this year… please note this is only to help me remember things I really don’t know why anyone else would be interested:

GIGS, EVENTS & THEATER…

• Feb: All New People
• May: Bill Bailey at Dunoon’s Queens Hall
• Nov: The Idiot Bastard Band

MOVIES (cinema)

• Jan: The Artist
• Feb: Casablanca
• June: The Angels’ Share
• June: A Royal Affair
• August: Brave
• November: Skyfall
• December: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Movies (home, but for some reason significant)

• Jan: The Adjustment Bureau
• May: Hugo
• July: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

RESTAURANTS, blogged about (I don’t blog about every restaurant anymore)…

• March: The Ivy Bar
• May: Browns
• Nov: The Ivy Bar (now known as Distill)

BOOKS read this year….

• Jan: Mark Kermode “The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex”
• Feb: Jack Higgins “The Valhalla Exchange”
• Feb: Simon Kernick “The Murder Exchange”
• March: Rachel Abbott “Only the Innocent”
• April: Suzanne Collins “The Hunger Games”
• June: Tom Rob Smith “Child 44″
• July: Suzanne Collins “Catching Fire”
• July: Dan Brown “The Lost Symbol”
• August: Richard Foss “Rum A Global History”
• September: David Baldacci “Zero Day”
• September: Terry Pratchett “Snuff”
• October: David Baldacci “The Innocent”
• October: Suzanne Collins “Mockingjay”
• November: Lee Child “A Wanted Man”
• December: Stuart Woods “Loitering with Intent”
• December: Stuart Woods “Strategic Movies”

Holidays…

• April: Blair Atholl
• July: CLANkidz
• September: Lagos, Portugal
• October: Rochester trip for Mark’s wedding, (it was a short trip but still a bit of a holiday)

Other Highlights:

• July: we discovered we were going to have a baby – announced after the first scan in September.

Running Totals:

• 2009 – 23 books – 6 Movies – 4 gigs
• 2010 – 33 books – 13 Movies – 10 gigs – 6 restaurants – 4 holidays
• 2011 – 18 books – 2 Movies – 3 gigs – 1 restaurants – 3 holidays
• 2012 – 16 books – 7 Movies – 3 gigs – 3 restaurants – 4 holidays

Summer Holiday 2011

I don’t ‘do’ Holidays in general.  I tend not to be good at taking myself off somewhere just for the sake of it but will go away to do things not just to relax and do nothing.  But I’m married now and married to someone who has the exact opposite view of holidays – looking ahead in the calendar to place the holidays first and then work everything else around these.  So we haven’t really worked out yet exactly how to make this work yet – of course we did manage to go to Barbados on Honeymoon this year but that’s different.

So it was due to a desire to visit D’s brother who lives in Coventry that we decided to stretch this into a longer break and spoil ourselves.  The plan was to go straight from Glasgow to Coventry for a couple of days then we booked four nights in a “Spa Hotel” in Yorkshire (going to avoid naming it for reasons that will become obvious).  We had no great wish to go to Yorkshire or reason to avoid Yorkshire but decided that because we had a deal with this chain of hotels and that one was half way home – why not Yorkshire!

We had a nice time in Coventry – saw the Cathedral and the Godiva Festival Parade and the weather was great.  Then headed to our Spa Hotel north of Leeds.  When we were booking we found that rather than a straight 4 night we could get a ‘walking holiday’ that was £30 cheaper and included packed lunch for the same 4 nights – so we were walkers!

In the end (details later if I can be bothered) our stay was fantastic! We had a spacious suite, fantastic food, great weather and as well as nice walks in the countryside, local towns and villages we had lots of use of the pool, hot tubs, steam room and sauna…. did I mention the food was fantastic.

After a couple of days we decided to stretch our break by taking another couple of nights in Windermere and booked into the Willowsmere B&B – we could highly recommend it!  We went for a cruise to Ambleside for the day, it was good weather for most of the day.  Then finally today spent some more time driving around the Lake District delaying the trip north in order to meet up with D’s other brother and family on their way back from Holiday.  This was fun as their kids had no idea we were arranging a rendezvous so were able to surprise them.

Among the highlights of a week in England for me was having time to unwind with my wife (sorry falling into all the ‘smug married’ traps, but can’t avoid it), relaxing in pool/hot tub/steam rooms, the weather, and listening to the audio book of Deathly Hallows at every opportunity.