by Emma Elsworthy
I have to admit I wasn’t overly thrilled at the prospect of a long weekend away, finding it hard to see past the mounting workload as I took a day off work, and the organisation required for travelling with two young boys. My husband Chris worked until midnight the evening before to ensure he could have Friday off work – was it really worth it? And then there was the journey, three hours and 20 minutes door to door. With two small children. Oh joy. Sure enough, as we pulled into the petrol station to fill up the car soon after leaving the house my eldest son Ben, four, asked “is this our holiday?” Twenty minutes later “are we nearly there yet? Thirty minutes later “how many minutes left now mummy?” and so it went on.

By the time we arrived at the holiday village, 22-month-old Oliver was covered head to toe in stickers (to alleviate Ben’s boredom) and Ben had lost all interest in our four day short break and wanted to go home. But as we unlocked the door of our three bedroom cottage, which overlooked the picturesque duck pond, we all acquired a new lease of life. It was superb. The accommodation was immaculate – a self confessed stickler for cleanliness, I loath dusty surfaces and stained sinks. I wasn’t disappointed. The cottage had everything we needed, from a fully equipped kitchen to en-suite bathroom, dishwasher, CD and DVD player, plenty of clean towels, coffee, tea, you name it.

Desperate to stretch our legs after the long car journey we made straight for the Sports and Leisure centre. The pool area was fantastic, with two great slides, a toddlers play area, Jacuzzi, steam room, sauna and hot tubs. We spent hours waiting at the bottom of the slide for Ben, a confident swimmer, as he plummeted into the water legs above head at 100 miles an hour, emerging from the depths of the water with a huge grin on his face, we took it in turns to keep an eye on Oliver whilst he went up and down the toddlers slide time after time after time, whilst the other person went off to enjoy 10 minutes of solitude in the sauna or steam room. This was the life.