All My Friends

So another year at Center Parcs.
Somehow, I think that it might be our last, for a while at least.

It seems that the policy of the place seems to have shifted. When I first started going, it was a place that gave good quality service, a high standard of food and had a sporty feel to it.
Unfortunately, I now feel that economics is becoming too much of a driver. That's not such a bad thing if it's sustainable and has long term benefits. Now, it seems that they are milking every single last drop of cash out of you that they possibly can.
It's understaffed, over-priced and the quality is poor.

Let me give you an example or two. The first main activity that H & Bobs did was on Tuesday morning. It's called an Arial Adventure. It consists of steadily making your way up tree mounted obstacles e.g. swinging platforms, until you reach quite a high platform where you then take to a zip-wire and slide all the way down. For those familiar, it's quite a lot like Go Ape, only a lot, lot smaller. The session took less than 30 minutes.
It's generally carried out in groups of 6-8. Their group was only the two of them, but that's because this was a very quiet week.
So what's the cost? £21........ each! Eight people at £21 = £168, potentially every half hour! Go Ape is at least £5 less than that and it lasts 2.5-3.5 hours.
The service in the restaurants can be used as another example. You arrive and it would be nice to be served straight away. I would say that it took on average 15 minutes before anyone came and saw us. The usual practice in restaurants is to get your drinks, then get your food order taken, right? Not here, you get the lot arriving at once after a major delay! We made the mistake in one place of asking for a pudding and a glass of water. The pudding took over 20 minutes, the glass of water required prompting. It was pretty damn abysmal.
Drinks prices? Well, bottled cider if fairly popular at the moment, isn't it? A bottle of Magners in the Livvy is £2.95. There, it was £3.95. A pint of Kronenburg and a G&T cost me £7.10!

Anyway, enough moaning. Like I said, we wont be going there next year for sure.
All that said, we still had quite a good time.
Here's a few pics as tasters. The rest can be seen HERE

Kandi Disco

Good morning!

Right, a quick ant update. As mentioned previously, we are once more "with ants". This lot are far more organised. I think the last lot must have been lazy, fat American ants or something. My new, all-improved ones are much more active. AND......... they've been burrowing! This is what we want.

Behold......



The big bit is one that I partially created for the original ones, but you can see the new bit that they've dug themselves. Good work my little beauties!

At the minute, they're still a little camera shy. This is the best that I could do with them so far. Needles to say, as soon as I put the camera away, they all come scurrying out.

A Samba In The Snowy Rain

I have proof! Yes indeed. Proof that there are people out there who read this. Either that or they're just looking for reasons to find embarassing photos of me!

Still, that inspires me somewhat to update this a little more frequently.

Coming in this issue - Titles, Myspace, Ants, Content, Music. Best get started then!

1. Titles
I thought I had responded to this somewhere in the past, but maybe not so here we go. If there's one thing that pains me, it's trying to think of titles for here and subjects in PMs etc.
Easy solution to this one. I'm nearly always listening to something when I type this up, so the title will simply become the title of the track that I'm listening to at the time. In the case it's by The Guillemots. More of them in the music section a bit later.

2. Myspace
Well this is still going strong. If you haven't had a look already, feel free to do so, the link is on the left hand side of this blog. If you're signed up too, feel free to add me.
I'm reasonably happy with it still and seem to be avoiding the chavspeak crap that first put me off it. Well, that is until I pay a visit to B2's site and see some of the comments on there ;o)
There is one thing that winds me up very slightly. That is the bloody stupid "about me" questionairre things that people seem intent on distributing. The occasional one is fine (so long as it's not too long), but some folk (looking at you, Chubbs! ;o)) send them out way too much. Normally they end with some bollocks about if you don't send it on, you will have seven years of bad luck or some such.
There is also a blog facility on there, but I think I'll stick with this format for now. Maybe add a link on there to here for now.

3. Ants
Well, summer is on it's way. I noticed some ants on the patio at the weekend, so I grabbed the antfarm and scooped them into it. I wasn't able to get that many, only about 6-7. I may try and get some more from the same place. Unfortunately, if they're not from the same next, they will kill each other though.
They are quite a bit smaller than the last lot, so I've had to seal the two air holes. Don't worry though, ants don't really need that much air, and I take the lid off daily. These seem very active too. They're running all over the place. They do keep stopping an having meetings. I'm not sure what about, but I'm preparing for an attack!

4. Content
I guess that this blog started off as the house project. It's progressed into general ramblings, but these are pretty much based around stuff that is actually going on. I was thinking about maybe moving into the genre of observation! What do you think?

5. Music
Ah yes, a subject very near to my heart.
I'm very pleased to say that over the past few months my music tastes have been broadened by chatting to people who have slightly different tastes to me (specifically Mazz & Razz). Some of you will know who I'm talking about.
I've still retained my previous taste, it's just expanded somewhat. So of late I have been listening to...
The Rakes
The Killers
The Kaiser Chiefs
Maximo Park
The Guillemots
Bright Eyes
And a very special mention goes to Kings Of Leon. This is a band who I never thought I would like. But they are now nudging at the best albums that I own!
Currently listening to The Holloways, who I saw as a support to The Rakes. They're very good too. They remind me lots of The Fratellis.

Right, that's your lot for now. Maybe more later!

Flathead

This morning saw us head across beyond Swaffham for a gentle stroll.

This was the route...


Really great weather for walking. Blue skies, bright sunshine and about 15ºC.
Anyway, here's a few that I took on the way round...







It was about 6 miles with a guide time of 2.5 hours. We did it without rushing too much in exactly 1hr 45mins.

This Is Not America

Good morning.

So the explanation for the previous pics was that the olds came over from France and were at ours for the weekend. Introduced the old man to the delights of Wii. B2 gave him a bit of a thrashing at most things, but he showed his skillz at 10 pin bowling.

Now for the beauty that is Wii boxing though.
The seriousness and concentration on his face is a sight to behold!



This is the same man who came from a caring profession! Scarey!

Onto yesterday...

We decided to have a day in the smoke visiting a few museums.
There was a Kylie exhibition on at the V&A, so I booked us some tickets for that. Unfortunately we missed the earlier train and didn't get there in time for our slot. We spent about 10 minutes in the V&A before heading for the Science Museum.
That's a very good fun place to visit. The most annoying thing is all the bloody little kids running around pressing buttons on things without even bothering to read what it was about. I did take some satisfaction in one particular area though. There was a big steel pole with signs saying "don't touch". Of course this was a pure invite for the little darling to do just that, after which they received a mild electric shock. Unfortunately, it wasn't powerful enough to make any of them cry, but it pleased me all the same!
We popped into one of those motion simulator things where it's a fully enclosed capsule that projects an image onto a screen up front whilst the whole thing moves about on hydraulic cylinders. This was one time when I was quite pleased to have some kids in there rather then adults trying to to pretend they weren't scared. H spent most of her time trying to stay on her seat. I think she fell of about four times in total.
Later on in the day we booked in to see a shark film at the iMax cinema. This is a huge screen, certainly the largest that I've been to. It's also 3D. When we entered, we were given special 3D glasses. We then proceeded to take the piss out of everyone else trying them on. In particular, there was one old chap, of a certain age, who donned his as soon as they were given to him. The comedy value of him stumbling about trying to find a seat with these stupid things on his head was a sight to behold.
So, just how ridiculous does one look in them?



Indeed!

After the Science, it was still early enough to quickly dive into the Natural History museum, but we immediately regretted it. Absolutely rammed does not do it justice. After 15 minutes we made our escape.
Still being a lovely day, we decided to walk quite a bit of the way - from South Kensington, to Knightsbridge, up The Mall and then cutting through to Picadilly Circus. Fantastic people watching to be done.

We Might As Well Be Strangers

Gonna post some quick photos because someone else wants access to them...

Wii antics with a couple of generations





This one, though, is one that I took a few days ago early in the morning. I like it and haven't posted it anywhere before...