Dad's 80th Birthday

Dad's 80th Birthday

Dad was 80 at the end of October 2014 and we celebrated with a weekend away at Lea Marston Hotel in Warwickshire.

Mum, Dad and Carole travelled down from Yorkshire and we travelled up from Kent on Friday 31st October, arriiving in plenty of time for afternoon tea.

The hotel team were very helpful, making plain sandwiches for those of us who can't eat mayonnaise. The ham was lovely, the scones very fresh and the little slate of cakes we each had were both delicious and well presented.

Once tea had settled, we had a quick turn in the pool and spa area. The pool was very nice, not too big but long enough to be able to swim from end to the other and feel you'd achieved something. The jacuzzi, steam room and sauna were all good too - we tried them all out.

After breakfast on the Saturday, Carole, Mum, Dad and Shirley went to Kenilworth for a short while. We visited the Abbey Fields area. The weather was really kind to us and we had a lovely stroll around.

c,d,m

st nicolas

First stop was The Ancient Parish Church of St Nicholas, Kenilworth. A beatiful church, very well kept with lovely old stained glass windows but a feeling of being a very active church.

flower

It seems the flower arrangers in the church have a lovely sense of humour with pumpkin carving, spiders webs and apples as part of the display in front of the pulpit. The pumpkin even had eyelashes drawn on.

c,d,m

The street on the edge of the Abbey Fields was really interesting with lots of different styles / ages of houses. The ones on the left were some of our favourites.

m&d

The walk back down to the river was beautiful - lovely and green with the trees just starting to change into their Autumn colours.

abbey

There were information boards here and there explaining about the history of the abbey and how it used to work etc. It was one of the richest in the country until Henry VIII got his hands on it.

Time for a cup of tea and a sit down before one last look at the river and back to the hotel to meet up with the others (who had texted us to let us know they'd arrived).

Lunch choices varied between fish and chips, soup, cheese and biscuits and scrounging off someone else's plate for some cheese! Most of us who arrived on the Friday weren't very hungry as we were still full from breakfast. Others who had set off early to get there on the Saturday were a bit more peckish.

We split into two groups in the afternoon. Paul, Gareth, Graeme and Dad went off to play pitch and putt on the hotel course whilst Carole, Pauline, Jonathon, Marie, Mum and Shirley went to Kingsbury Water Park. It was lovely.

dinghy

There was some dinghy racing on one of the lakes.

We took a few photos as we strolled around the park but, obviously, have none of the golfers. From some of the comments made over dinner I think that's probably a good thing. The words "they were very kind to us" were said more than once.

ducks

There were a few water birds around but the donkeys weren't there (probably gone to their winter homes) and the little steam train wasn't working while we were there.

jetskis

As you can see there were a couple of very high powered jet skiers speeding around on another lake. Whilst the drone they made wasn't too nice, they were interesting to watch and the speed they moved at was amazing. At one time, one of them had passengers on and the other was pulling a mini boat / inflatable "seat" with people in. Rather them than me.

Time for another cup of tea then back to base to regroup and, of course, for birthday cake.

The bottom tier was a very rich chocolate cake, the top layer was vanilla sponge. Really tasty.

Actvity or rest time before dinner. Some went to the spa, some went for a snooze, others went and got ready for dinner. You'll have noticed the day revolved around eating and drinking.

Dinner time arrived and, again, the restaurant team looked after us very well. It seems the menu needed to be studied in depth and then discussed at length.

Sunday morning, after our exercise (Pauline swimming, Paul and Shirley gymming), we all had a hearty breakfast. Gareth and Graeme went for a round of golf and Jonathon and Shirley left the others doing crosswords and marking homework as we drove back home.