Woolacombe Days Three + Four and a Quinoa Lentil Bake Recipe

You can see the re-cap of the first two days of our holiday here, so now I will talk about the second half of our time away - Sunday 7th and Monday 8th August 2011. I wasn't planning to publish both recaps on consecutive days, but I have so much going on at the moment that I don't seem to have many free days for "regular" food posts (although I will do one tomorrow, promise!) plus I wanted to publish these re-caps this week, so that next week I can start writing posts to share our wedding photos! :-D This post does have a recipe included in it as well though, so it is slightly more food-orientated! Here we go...

On Sunday, we were woken up bright and early again. Well maybe not so bright, it was absolutely pouring with rain all through Saturday night, and Sunday morning. Breakfast was similar to Saturday - Oats & More cereal, chopped nectarine, milk, and the addition of coconut butter. Yum yum.

And when baby had his (early) morning nap, we all ate cake...

I ate so much food whilst we away - being stuck inside a cold mobile home whilst rain poured down onto the roof definitely required comfort food!!

By the time Toby woke up from his nap, the rain had eased up a bit, so we tentatively stepped outside. Izzy got to use her new umbrella...

We first headed to the soft play, but it was absolutely heaving so we didn't stay long. Luckily, by the time we came outside, the sun had come out! We quickly went back to the mobile home to grab our swim stuff, so that Izzy and I could try out the outside water park! Liam took Toby for a walk instead - neither of them are a fan of cold water - but actually the pool was heated, it was just the surrounding air that was cold!!

We also went down a couple of slides which Liam didn't photograph. Izzy had such a great time, lots of swimming underwater, lots of splashing, and lots of laughing!

After swimming, we went back to the mobile home to dry off and eat lunch. The weather was so weird on Sunday - it literally poured all morning, then 2 hours of lovely sunshine at lunchtime, and then poured all afternoon. Luckily we managed to fit in lunch outside before the rain started! Fried egg sandwiches with cheese and jam (we had no ketchup so I took inspiration from Julie @ Peanut Butter Fingers!)...

This was delicious. I adore fried egg sandwiches with cheese anyway (thicker slices of cheese than normal as we had no cheese slice in the mobile home so I had to do my best with a sharp knife!) and the sweet jam went really well. I'm craving this now as I write even though I've only just eaten!!

After lunch, we enjoyed the last of the lemon cake and coffee outside...

After this the rain started again, so we took that as a sign it was afternoon nap time!

We went swimming (inside) again late afternoon...the building the swimming pool was in is huge!

I wanted to make sure we had time to cook dinner between swimming and the disco, so I prepared most of the meal before we went swimming.

Quinoa Lentil Bake
(serves 3-4)

• 175g quinoa
• 1 tin (400g?) chopped tomatoes
• water
• 1 tin green lentils, drained and rinsed
• chilli powder, to taste
• approx 70g cheddar, grated

1. Put the quinoa, chopped tomatoes and a tin's worth of water into a pan. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Once the quinoa has absorbed all the water, put into a baking dish and mix in the lentils and chilli powder.
3. Top with grated cheese.
4. (Leave whilst go swimming) Bake in the oven at 180C for 15 minutes.

I served ours with tinned sweetcorn for a quick, but tasty meal...

Liam and I both went back for seconds!

After Toby had checked that the disco was actually on (!!)...

we went up to the main building for some dancing!

As it was our last night, we had some popcorn as a treat! We ended up getting through two of these big boxes!!

We also bought Izzy a spinny light thing...

We hadn't been planning to stay at the disco that late on the Sunday night, as instead of a clown there was a talent contest which we didn't think she'd find so interesting. But actually, she loved watching all the contestants so we ended up staying til 8.30pm again, especially as a visit from Betty Beachball had been promised! She told a story of what she'd been doing that day - this was surfing by the looks of it!

*******

Monday was our last day in Woolacombe. I had a mix of the two cereals I'd brought with me for breakfast (we'd run out of fresh fruit)...

and then it was time to pack up. We had to check out by 10am, but we decided to stay on campsite until after lunch (this worked well for us as it meant that Toby had his afternoon nap for pretty much all of the drive home). After we'd checked out, we first went to the under 5s club - it was advertised as a mini disco, but was more like aerobics for the under 5s! Lots of running around, hopping, musical statues etc...great for tiring Izzy out while we drank coffee!! At the end of the session, there was the chance for all the children to meet Billy Beachball...

Most children hugged him, but Izzy just sat there looking a bit nervous!!

We then went swimming for the 5th time in 4 days...

and then it was time for lunch. We went to the same pub we went to on the first day, but this time I made a point of ordering something that wasn't baked - my thinking being I'd get more of it. I was right - this was huge! Penne pasta with mushrooms in a creamy garlic sauce, with more lovely garlic bread on the side...

plus a side of onion rings that we all shared...

This lunch was delicious. I was completely full afterwards, too full for dessert which was a bit of a shame as I'd been eyeing up some kind of apple and raspberry tart with meringue pieces and crumbled brandy snaps on top! Luckily the others were all full, so none of us had dessert. Otherwise I'd have probably ordered dessert despite being full, and felt even more uncomfortable on the drive home than I already did with my pasta baby!!

We left the campsite straight after lunch and made it home quickly. A great holiday, despite the weather. We may not have made it to the beach, but we can do that at home when the weather is better. The important thing is we got to spend lots of quality time together as a family. There was no phone or internet signal there either which meant Liam and I had to *gasp* talk to each other in the evenings! It was kinda nice to have a couple of days away from the laptops and iPhones!!