Okay, time for some of the holiday pictures (it's been *ages*, I know, but everything seems to be conspiring against me writing much at the moment)...
Anyway, the venue we booked (which Flyingpops found Googling around the place) was a privately owned bungalow (you get the idea looking at the picture above) in the Widemouth Bay Holiday Village which we got
*suspiciously* cheaply, considering the time of year we were staying, and it quickly became apparent that there was a very good reason for this...
When we spoke to the owner to confirm details she hesitantly informed us that all of the facilities on the site were very likely to be closed during our stay (bar/restaurant/swimming pool/play areas) because the site was going into administration, and was that okay? However, liking a bargain, and armed with the known proximity of several excellent pubs/restaurants/the beach/etc. we told her it was fine and went ahead and booked it anyway (Flyingpops folks snapping up a similar bargain apartment at the same time)...the brilliant thing being, just before we were about to head off for our break we were informed that a potential buyer had been found and the facilities would be open for business after all! Hurrah! So, quite a result for us!
Anyway, lets take a little swing around the place, starting with the *stunning* views from the site (as I already mentioned this view was the one that greeted me when I opened my curtains each morning) -
- being the beautiful Widemouth bay, which meant Thomas and I could gauge how the surf was going to be before Flyingpops even woke up from her usual lay in and start packing the bags accordingly...But I get ahead of myself...
When we first arrived (and managed to tear our eyes away from the horizon) we parked the car (in the ample, flag lined car park) and, even though we had been told it would be possible to drive quite near the bungalow to assist in luggage transference, the gate was firmly padlocked and standing nearby were a number of (judging by their state of repair, presumably medieval) hand carts...so after a quick walk around to find our place of abode, I made three (huffy puffy) trips with the best looking wobbly, clanking seesaw (scattering items all over the grass as I went) before collapsing with a bottle of water and gratefully watching Flyingpops unpack everything neatly into drawers...
When recovered, we look a bit of a look around the rest of the site and found that it did indeed have a lovely swimming pool (but obviously it's not done to take pictures of public pools filled with other people's kids, so you will have to use your imagination when I say it was) situated inside a large greenhouse-like structure, meaning it was tropical temperatures inside, it was divided into a raised, circular little kids paddling pool which drained (fountain fashion) into the gently sloped main pool, off the side of which was a 6 person jacuzzi, roughly opposite that was a small sauna and steam room and a door between the two joined the pool directly to the bar which looked like this -
- did food like this -
- (steamed steak puddings/chicken burger/cauliflower cheese/garlic bread) which all did what they said on the menu (basic pub grub)...and absolutely *basked* in the view (sorry, I
promise to stop going on about it now) -
Leading directly off the bar was the (small, but perfectly formed) soft play area, of which Thomas was *fond* -
- but not half as fond as he was of the "bigger boys" play area with the tempting arcade machines and giant connect four -
Outside, there were some really good adventure playground type things -
- which Thomas climbed all over and swung on -
- and some really good, lush (probably because they weren't being mowed at the moment) lawns, which Thomas enjoyed almost as much as the adventure playground-
- the only bad thing about the place was, on the last couple of days of the break, most people left to go home and it wasn't worth them opening the bar any more (for the handful of us left), but when proper ownership materialises, no doubt this will be (certainly) one of the best places to stay in the entire area...especially for a family as it's
so quiet and child friendly (no cars, big lawns, plenty to do) and a big step up from staying in a caravan (and in our case a lot cheaper too)...
Highly recommended... ;)
More from the break later on...
