Tag Archives: beach

Butlins Bognor Regis: Some Highlights

We’ve been back from our Butlins break for a few days now, and there’s so much to write about that I’m having trouble knowing where to begin.  So I thought I’d start with some highlights of our holiday.

butlins highlights 1

The highlight of Monday was definitely checking into the beautiful Wave hotel after a tiring day.  We liked the decor, our interconnecting rooms were large, clean and comfortable and the children loved their mini ocean-themed rooms with bunk beds and TVs.  They wanted to watch a DVD straight away which gave me time to test our bed.  It was so comfortable that I nearly didn’t get up again, and when I finally went to bed that night I had the best sleep I’ve had in ages.

butlins highlights 2

On Tuesday we decided to explore the local area, and we had a brilliant day out at Fishbourne Roman Palace which is only a 20 minute drive from Butlins.  This was the highlight of the holiday for me and we will definitely be going back there soon.

butlins highlights 3

Wednesday was a difficult day as Rabbit wasn’t well, so we (Paul, mum and I) took turns looking after her while the others entertained the boys.  Luckily there is plenty to do on site, so the boys had a good day.  The combination of soft play, shows, the fairground, swimming and the games port at the hotel kept them very busy and happy.  Our highlight of the day was a fantastic evening meal at Turner’s restaurant, which Paul and I were able to enjoy with the boys as mum kindly offered to look after Rabbit.  I will review all the restaurants we tried in a separate post, but we were really impressed by Turner’s in particular.

butlins highlights 4

On Thursday we spent the morning on the beach which is right outside the day entrance to Butlins, and we had a lovely time.  It was nice to see Rabbit enjoying herself – though still unwell, she was a bit better than she had been the day before, and was able to have some fun in the sea before getting tired and needing to rest again.

butlins highlights 5

On Friday, the children were sad to be leaving Butlins but we had planned a detour on the way home to cheer them up.  We met with our friends from 3 Kids and a Gluestick and had a brilliant afternoon at Littlehampton beach, which is also only 20 minutes away from Butlins by car.  Rabbit was quite a lot better by then, so she was able to enjoy herself with her friends and swim in the sea which helped to make up for having missed the chance to go swimming at Butlins.  We had a really good holiday and we have promised the children we will be going back to Bognor Regis as soon as we can.  I never thought we would persuade them that another Butlins could be as good as Minehead, but now it looks like they are expecting to go to both every year.  Perhaps we’d better not let them discover Skegness just yet!

We were invited to stay on a 4 night break at Butlins Bognor Regis as part of my role as a Butlins Ambassador.  All opinions are my own.

 

Friday round up – 10th August 2012

Saturday and Sunday

We spent the weekend at my parents’ house, which is always good but was even better as my brother was there for the middle weekend of his fortnight in the UK (he lives in Australia.)  We had seen him on Monday evening last week, but it was good to spend some more time together, and the children had lots of fun with him.  We enjoyed the peace and quiet of a weekend in the countryside and away from our to-do lists after such a busy and disrupted few weeks.  There was a Latin lesson, a lot of playing with Lego and reading stories, an afternoon playing out on the green with a friend who lives in the village and plenty of watching the Olympics.

Monday

Back to reality and living in our house while the kitchen work was being finished… It had already taken three weeks and seemed like it would go on forever, but the end was in sight.  It was hard work being in the house with the children, so we went out as much as we could.  On Monday I took them to the pub, which Suburban Dad found rather amusing.  Every Monday in the summer holidays they have children’s craft mornings, and it was a great place to hang out.  The younger three played in the sandpit while Owl read a book from cover to cover, giving me time to have a peaceful cup of coffee, then they all had a go at some of the crafts once the crowds around the tables had diminished.  We had lunch there (having no kitchen is expensive) and then walked back via the park, stopping for a while in the playground, then getting soaked in a downpour on the way home.

Tuesday and Wednesday

On Tuesday we had lunch at the deli across the road (we love it) and then walked to the library and spent a long time there reading while Tiddler slept in the buggy.  On Wednesday we went to the local church cafe for lunch (cheaper) and filled in time at the charity shop buying books, then sat outside the Art Gallery with the owner and her son reading the books in the sunshine.  When we went home half way through the afternoon the work was finished, which was a big relief.  We did some work on our Olympic project which we haven’t really been able to do much of with all the disruption, and Owl in particular was very interested.

Thursday

We all thoroughly enjoyed the first normal day in our own house for a month, and after a quiet morning doing our Olympic project (me and Owl) and playing (the others) we had a good time with our friends who came over for lunch and stayed till after supper (always a pleasure with their three well-behaved helpful children!)  I loved cooking on my new induction hob (thank you John Lewis sale) and found the new layout of the kitchen such an improvement that it was a positive pleasure to let Monkey come in and help me to make pudding (his own creation, called Yummy Delight – I believe there’s a blog post to follow…)  It was never fun cooking in there before, but now I am going to train up the young chefs till I’m out of a job.

Friday

I spent the day at the Rosemary Conley Roadshow in Essex, which was a lot of fun, and the children had a wonderful day at the beach with daddy.  When they collected me, I was impressed at how sandy and muddy, lolly-juice-sticky and happy they were.  The bag of rice cakes and fruit I had sent with them was untouched, and the lolly they were finishing and dripping all over the car was their third one – definitely a daddy day.  We arrived home in time to order a delicious Thai meal for supper and share it with my mum, dad and brother who had come down for the evening (my brother is leaving on Sunday.)  It was lovely to be able to sit out in the garden at the end of a beautiful sunny day, and good to relax after such a busy week.