Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!!

Its the last Bank Holiday of the summer, so I expect we will have rain to finish the season. I really don't mind, we had such nice weather on holiday it just doesn't matter!

Today I am playing the waiting game. At the end of last year we replaced our sofa and chairs in the living room. We decided to not spend a fortune so we bought from Ikea. It wasn't their cheapest range, but they came with all their expertise and a years guarantee, so we were happy enough. 

A few weeks ago I was hoovering when I noticed a loose spring, so we tipped the sofa up and found three springs had detached themselves from the frame. I called Ikea and they sent a man out to examine it. He looked and said it couldn't be repaired, there had been a batch with manufacturing defects and we had got one of those. They were happy to replace the sofa, but the colour was no longer being produced. So we have chosen another colour to try, if it doesn't work, they will have to replace the whole lot.

One of the great things about our recent holiday was that we were right next door to a theme park!! There were a few really high adrenalin rides and a fair few tamer ones, a good mix really. This year I had a go on The Falcon, which is a roller coaster that goes upside down and corkscrews, I am undecided if I like it or not. I had one go before Carl arrived and thought that would be the one ad only go. We were front row and going up to the first drop the whole carriage tips you onto your back so you are looking at the clear blue sky!!! Very scary, you can't tell when you reach the top, when you do its too late you are on the way back down! It only lasts about 40 seconds. Once Carl arrived he persuaded me to try it again. It was oddly better the second time. In total I rode it five times including once when it was pouring with rain and we got drenched! 

Beth loved these little boats, she came down a big slide and sped to the bottom stopping just short of a crash mat. Not everyone did stop short some of the bigger blokes piled into them!

This year there was a new roller coaster, billed as a family coaster. It was also advertised as the 'biggest coaster in the park' Not too difficult as there were only three coasters in total in the park! It was a good ride with a couple of jumpy drops and twists. It was such a contrast to the likes of Disney where there are loads and loads of attendants, Duinrell generally had one attendant on each ride, no one controlling the queues or checking at the start that the children were tall enough. It worked fine though, people queued up and managed to find an empty carriage without being directed by anyone, children not tall enough were turned away by the attendant at the ride if they had chosen to ignore the height warnings at the start of the queue. The only ride that had two attendants was Falcon. I think that had been set up that way, one checking the seats were locked and the other watching and dealing with the carriage that was already on the track. We never saw any queue problems it all worked very well.

For me the best ride in the park was the Mad Mill. It is a HUGE swing that spins on itself, that perfect mixture of stomach churning spins and weightlessness when we reached the peak of the swing, it was fantastic!! It was also the one ride in the park where the poor attendant had to be armed with a bucket and mop. We saw many people being sick once they got off.  

Beth had a near nasty experience when a man sitting next to her went very green and started to heave, luckily we were coming into land and he managed to keep a grip until he was able to get off and puke off the ride!!!

Its a fantastic ride I am so pleased I was able to go on it!!! I have no idea where there is another one, I would make a trip to any park with one in this country!!

MMmmmmm Ikea are not impressing me, I have been up since 7am as they gave us a 7am to 1pm delivery slot, they have still not phoned to give me my one hour advance notice of arrival and they are 30 minutes past their delivery slot. I can feel a phone call coming on. 

Have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend.