Butlins Fun & Disco with Steve & Michaela

Hip Hip Hooray!  Time for another superb holiday at Butlins! With bubbling excitement, we met up and made our way to Skegness where we found our very comfortable gold lodges.  We felt at home right away and were bursting to set off to explore!

 

 

Our week was packed FULL of fun and we were out enjoying our days of glorious sunshine.  We took a lovely trip to Hardy's Animal Farm where we saw pigs, ducks, goats, lambs, chicks, llamas and horses!  Everyone adored the animals and we even got to stroke some. 

 

 

 

 

On another day we went to the Seal Sanctuary and Wildlife Center. There was so much to see and do!  We fed the lovely seals and wandered around the colourful aquarium, the crocodile house, the butterfly house and the petting zoo.  We even visited the funny penguins that waddled around happily.  We then took the scenic drive to Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve, an unspoilt stretch of coastline running southwards from the edge of Skegness to the mouth of the Wash.  What a  fab time we had!

 

 

 

  

We were thoroughly entertained each evening at Center Stage, dancing with all of our might to some amazing tribute acts!  We saw Freddie Mercury, The Beatles and The Jersey Boys.  One evening we blasted out some incredible renditions of our favourite songs at a local pub's karaoke night!  We got so many woops and cheers, it was like we were famous!

 

 

Everyone had heaps of fun and came home feeling refreshed and full of life!

Latitude Music, Arts & Dance Festival with Derek & Melanie

Watch out Latitude, here we come!  What an absolutely FANTASTIC three days we had at this vibrant and vivacious festival!  As soon as we arrived we could feel the anticipation in the air. 

 

We entered the festival through the beautiful shaded forest where we were greeted by real life fairies and elves!  Glowing lights hung from tree to tree, luring us in to explore what was on offer. 

 

 

 

 

Over our time at the festival, we saw many wonderful musicians and bands in all of the different tents, such as Clean Bandit, The Bombay Bicycle Club, The Black Keys, Damon Albarn, Asgeir and many many more!  We danced with all the energy we could muster and sang loudly to the ones we knew!

 

 

 

We had lots of laughs at the comedy and poetry tents, where we saw Dara O'Brian, Kevin Bridges, Marcus Brigstocke, Marcus Lucont, Seann Walsh, Nick Helm, Jenny Lindsay, Alexis Dubus and more!  The audience participation was fantastic fun and we were kept entertained in between all of the acts!

 

We watched highlights from Dirty Dancing The Musical and snippets from the Saddlers Wells English National Ballet.  They were both performed on the beautiful Waterfront Stage,  where we watched from the soft grassy bank.   It was an unforgettable experience to be so close to these wonderful dancers. 

 

We wandered all over, dipping into the lovely woodland areas where there were quirky little theatre productions and an extensive amount to get involved with.  We saw a one man act called 'The Only Way is Downton' in the Cabaret tent.  We laughed our SOCKS off, as his impressions of all of the characters was uncanny!

 

 

It really would be impossible to mention everything we did, as there was so much!  the festival bought our senses to life and let our imaginations run wild!  In the few days before the festival kicked off, we spent some glorious time on the beaches at Gorelston-on-Sea, Lowestoft and Southwold.  We all agreed what a beautiful part of the country Suffolk is. We even went to the brilliant circus at the Hippodrome in Yarmouth. What fun!

Our Latitude Music, Dance & Arts holiday was truly unforgettable and we can't wait to go again next year!