Road Trip to Center Parcs Eleveden Forest - Day Two

August 14, 2017

Road Trip to Center Parcs Eleveden Forest - Day Two - Breckland Apartments

Day Two

Day two meant leaving the Premier Inn and moving on to Center Parcs, Elveden Forest. I have an extra weeks holiday husband Tony, so I take advantage of that by having up to a week away with Lauren each year. Previously we've had weekends away at Art in Action in Oxford, or used Group on specials but, fort he last 4 years, we've been coming to Center Parcs. Twice to the Lakeside Hotel at Elveden - just an-suite room with a fridge and last year we had a lovely 1-bedroom executive at Sherwood, which was two storey and had a kitchen and a proper living area. This year however, the Lakeside at Elveden has been knocked down and is being rebuilt as a modern apartment block. Much as I will miss Lakesides (formerly The Sheldrake) Dutch charm and revolving restaurant, it was well overdue for an upgrade. It's initial replacement is not by the lake but overlooking the golf course and is not filled with hotel rooms, but small self-catering apartments (photos at the end).

We started the day with our Premier Inn breakfast, £8.99 for the two of us - buffet continental and table service English, all you can eat - dangerous! I tried a tiny bit of granola - which quite obviously hadn't been any one else's choice for a while as it was slightly stale - not like Lauren's coco pops that you could hear her crunch from the other side of the room!
I opted for bacon (free), beans (free), hash brown (5 syns) and poached egg (free) - the poached egg was the best one I've ever had in a restaurant, lovely. I also had some toast and a small pain au raisin (guiltee, as Body Coach would say!!).

Breckland

At 10 o'clock we headed to Center Parcs and went straight to get our bikes. There was a big queue, a typical Center Parcs problem that would be helped by some additional signs, or a bike "maitre d'" to tell people if they've already booked they can move on to the next queue etc. In reality though the queue moved pretty fast and we were soon faced with plenty of staff allocating and checking out our bikes. I ended up with a Mountain bike, what a laugh! I've never been on one before, I wanted a Raleigh Shopper but they were all gone. Bit difficult to get my dodgy hip over the frame but once on, a wobbly but good ride. Despite Lauren's great fear that I was going to embarrass her, the old adage is true, you never forget how to ride a bike.

First stop we went over to check out the Breckland, but from the outside it's a big glass, stone and wood box, so not much to see until it we could check in, but the view from the back gave a small glimpse of what the apartments might be like.

We popped to the Country Club for a coffee, moved our bikes to the apartment and then we had an hour to kill before our first activity. We went to the Lake where we had an ice cream and sunbathed as it had turned into a glorious afternoon. We read our books and watched and listened to the howl of the F-15's from Lakenheath flying past, one of the major attractions of Elveden for us - daily free airshows!

Our first activity for the week was pottery painting. We do it every year on arrival day, while every one else is clambering to get in to their villas...oops..I should say "Lodges" now, we sit and calmly paint pottery until all the hoo-ha has died down and we can get to our apartment with relative ease. Lauren always likes to paint an animal and I always like to make something practical or I can't see the point, it's not cheap, you pay and initial booking fee of I think £5 and then you pay for your piece. They start at £10 and go up to at least mid £30's for bigger pieces likes serving plates and vases. You give them 3 coats of paint and then leave them there for a couple of days to dry and be fired before picking up the finished article.

This will be a lovely orange cat like Rusty before he became
Firestar in Laurens Warrior Cats books

Next stop was the Parcmarket, the Center Parcs version of a supermarket, but not as competitive. We picked up some essentials ingredients for dinner. We also did something really old fashioned - we rented a DVD - Ghost in the Shell, £3.50 for the night!

Harry Potter Triv -
rolling a dice on a balcony
is a dodgy pastime!

Finally it was time to go to our accommodation, we hot footed it back to the car and then spent a typical Maria and Lauren amount of time driving round in circles - our mantra is if a roundabout is worth going round once, it's worth going round at least 3 times. Once again Center Parcs signage issues! In the end I had to park (not an easy feat in the tank!) and run back to the Arrivals Lodge to find out where to go, then, when we got to our destination the dedicated car park was full, we found a space in the Aqua Sana day visitors car park and hope we wont be clamped! On a brighter note a couple of managers saw us lumbering along with our heavy bags and offered to take them in for us, we didn't take them up, but thought it was a lovely gesture.

We've well and truly moved in since, all unpacked got the TV set up, read our books and had dinner on the balcony with another free airshow, we've played Harry Potter Trivial Pursuits and we've finished off the evening watching our rental DVD from our beds, it's not been a very slimming world friendly day but I managed to make our tea on plan.

Birthday Champagne at last!

Quick and Easy Syn Free Chicken Curry

Fry a chopped onion in fry light (or use spray oil - 1/2 syn for 5 sprays), add garlic powder (or chopped fresh garlic if you have it, chopped chicken breast pieces, a crumbled chicken stock cube, about 2 tbsp medium curry powder (or mild or hot whatever your preference) and a small pot of Fage Total 0% Greek Yoghurt, don't let it boil or the yoghurt will separate, but cook until the chicken breast is cooked all the way through and season to taste.

Very quick and simple which is what you need on holiday - at home I would add courgettes and mushrooms and of course a big handful of spinach. You can add whatever you have.

We had ours with half a pack of Uncle Ben's basmati (1/2 syn) each, some salad and half a bag of Sensations Poppadoms (1.5 syns) each. We didn't have pudding - even though Lauren asked a million times and kept reminding me we were "on holiday", but if I fell for that we would also have eaten out for a lunch we never needed, had Krispy Kreme's and had Frappacinos at Starbucks - and I don't even like those!.