How can there be a day five, we were only there for four days? Well, it's four nights, and you can make quite a lot of use of the day you arrive AND the day you leave. We packed up the lodge back into the car, put the car back in the car park and went back for more swimming. We confirmed here that yes, T1 had definitely lost his hoodie, again. We thought it odd he walked home the night before with no hoodie but he swore he'd not brought one out with him, hmm... We didn't swim as long as we might have done, T2 seemed to have had enough quite quickly so he went up to join Clare in the cafe. This just left me and T1 to go on the Tropical Cyclone again, and it worked fine as a two. One more go on that and we were done, so we all got dried and headed off. Luckily, yes there is a lost property office, it's not too far away, yes they had his hoodie, and we're all ready to go home.
We headed off the site to a relatively nearby Tesco to get meal deals for lunch, and then a steady drive home. It took as long as expected, probably less time overall than the first leg of our drive out. So that's our little holiday over.
When we got back the rain absolutely came down, it was like a monsoon. It was raining so hard, so heavily that it was making the water spurt back out through the drains again. Not sure why but this is one of my favourite things. This was not my actual favourite bit of the holiday but it was close. Clare was driving, and I tried to take pictures of this and sort of got it. Clare was driving at this point remember, it's fine.
When we got in I went almost straight out with a friend. I was hoping to go to Potting Shed, but he suggested the Norfolk in Sandgate. We popped in the old Inn Doors on the way there, now called Docker, feeling adventurous. We saw some other old friends there, and strangely someone thought they owed my friend and so bought us both a drink and then disappeared. Very nice, especially at those prices. I noticed among the ten beers on offer that was was purporting to be cask ale, and pointed this out to my buddies. We are all real ale drinkers and were compromising by coming back to this place as we had heard it was all keg beer. It was a cask ale, but it was disgusting, it was off, and a refund was had. What a shame! I hope they try again with real ale, but slightly suspect they won't bother.
From there to the Norfolk, where they had the same beers as before, and from there to The Vaults, where they had no ale at all, as suspected. At least we know now and don't have to wonder about these places. Valuable research.
Chips on the way home, and that is pretty much the end of my holiday.
⬅️ Holiday 2023 - Center Parcs day four :: Holiday 2023 - the full Center Parcs schedule ➡️
Paul Clarkeʼs weblog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone, Kent. Wed + father to 2, I am a full stack web developr, + I do js / Node, some ruby, other languages etc. I like pubbing, parkrun, eating, home automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.