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

Night time at Breckland

Onken 0% yoghurt, with apple, banana and strawberry

Tonight I'm writing this as we've just got back from the bird feeding hiding, which we finally found today and it's about 200 yards from the apartments.

We had a late start this morning as Lauren's hay fever flared up in the night, meaning we were up for an hour with streaming noses and sneezing. I finally manged to make the air con fans come on and that seemed to give enough respite for us to get back to sleep.

We were going to go out for breakfast but we opted for the same breakfast as yesterday and we would have lunch out instead.

We did manage to get out in time for our activity for the day - 10 pin bowling. It was ultra violet but not as bad as Sherwood, so we were spared any blushes. We managed 2 full games for our 45 minutes, but we were both pretty rubbish, Lauren had the buffers up and I just threw my shots everywhere. We had a draw in the first game 85 each and I just pipped the second one thanks to some fluky spares.

After a panic over a lost bike helmet - mine - located down a settee in the leisure bowl, we decided we would have a bike ride before lunch. Today we decided that we would take every left turn we came across as opposed to yesterdays every right turn, no downhill dead ends this time.

Steak and frites and schnitzel
and frites with celeraic slaw
and some dead watercress

For lunch we decided on Café Rouge and really the whole experience just made me a bit annoyed. The restaurant was by no means busy, we sat outside on the terrace, there were two tables occupied inside and three outside, a waitress inside and a waiter outside, but we were totally ignored until after 10 minutes we asked for some menus. The waiter was pleasant enough but it was like calling a scripted call centre - all a bit frustrating, everything took ages, the table next to us were trying to be polite in telling him they had an activity to go to and could he hurry up, that rubs off on me then and makes me anxious. When we finally got round to ordering I asked for the hake only to be told they had run out, that's two days running now we couldn't get something we wanted, I thinks that's odd in peak season that they don't make sure they can service their customers properly. I ended up having something off the lunch menu, but when the meals came they were completely mediocre, so disappointing when you are out for a treat. The worse thing was you can't get vegetables for love nor money unless you pay £3.85 for some green beans, both our meals came with a horrible pile of watercress that was dry and wilted and yellowing, not good enough.


Our next stop was to go and pick up our pottery pieces that we lovingly created on arrival on Monday, think they've come out great, just need to get them home in one piece.

A quick trip to the supermarket to take back The Lost City of Z. I found it a bit dull and we both fell asleep before the end. Lauren said it was interesting as it's a true story about an explorer of South America. We decided against renting another DVD as we've been mostly listening to Spotify or the radio and not watching TV.

Back at the apartment we had some time playing Uno which I won and then Skip-Bo which Lauren thrashed me at. We decided on another bike ride before tea time, we wanted to find the bird hide - turned out not to be too difficult as it was within spitting distance of the apartments, we managed to see a spotted woodpecker, some pigeons, a couple of  jays, a nuthatch, a great tit and there was a Muntjac wandering around.

We watched it for a while and then as the F15's had gone out after a really quiet morning we decided on another bike ride. The weather this afternoon was glorious again, we have been really lucky, although the news from home is that we are set for a change tomorrow and we may have soggy saddles when we wake up in the morning.

Lauren  - "What do you call cheese that's not yours?" Me "Dunno"
Lauren "Nacho cheese" (not your cheese!!)

Back at the apartment it was tea time, Lauren's choice. She had decided on chilli nachos, so that's what we made. A slimming world friendly chilli was made. Then we put Doritos in a bowl, covered with the chilli and then some Cathedral light and baked on the oven for 15 minutes and served with plain basmati and salad leaves. After dinner, we went back out to the hide where we heard a Tawny owl but didn't see the badgers or foxes that Lauren was hoping for.

We're now sitting in bed listening to the radio and thinking about another hopefully full nights sleep in our comfy beds.

Night x

Entrance to Breckland, entry by electronic key

I was not thinking about the Shining at all when I took this,
honest!
But  if I see twin girls tomorrow I'm off!

One of my bug bears when we stay at Premier Inns and Travelodge's is that in this day and age one singular plug hole on one side of the bed is totally inadequate, people use their phones as alarms and clocks as well as the normal phone stuff.
Was very impressed therefore to find one of the next to each bed in Breckland, two plug holes and 2 USB ports for charging.

Breckland's kitchen is fully equipped with a combination oven/microwave, a ceramic hob, a fridge with freezer box, the all important dishwasher and this, a wine fridge!