20th - 26th October 2007

This week we were given a cottage on the grounds at Harcombe House in Devon.



The fire service run these centers for past and present firefighters to have Therapy,rest & recuperation.



Within a few minutes of arriving at the cottage, the boys had spotted a football goal, after an initial scramble of running for bedrooms deciding who had which (Jon won running to the main bedroom shouting it was HIS).

We spent some of the time visiting the local seasides, lovely to look at but much too cold to dip our toes in. The boys spent all the rest of their stay on the five a side football pitch (am so glad we packed a football!).



On the tuesday morning we got up early and met at the bootwash at 10am for a guided walk through some of the trails available to use. We were taught all about the local wildlife and scenery. Chris called it a 20 mile walk it was more like a 3 mile walk but we all enjoyed it.



In the evening on Tuesday the bar held a Halloween party for everyone, it was amazing to see how many children there actually were on the site. During the daytime we had only seen a couple of other children there must have been nearly 30 children in the hall. The kids played games including apple bobbing, hit the witch pinata (Chris managed to whack a lollipop out of it) and wrap the mummy (sorry no photo forgot to take the camera) they wrapped me up with 4 bandages, the fastest and tidiest mummy won, we didn't win but a lot of laughter took place. The boys had another go back at the cottage on each other.



Most of the holiday the boys spent playing football, the site also had a lovely private indoor pool, some days we even went swimming twice. The kids really enjoyed playing about with Jon and I, we played Tag and water polo and generally splashed about. In the evenings we tended to stay in the cottage playing family games on the playstation (even got Jon joining in a karaoke evening on it.) and sports on the Wii.

All too soon it was Friday and time to pack and come home, even Butterly the cat popped in to say goodbye to us.



We thoroughly enjoyed our weeks break and found out that the fire service have 3 of these centers around the country, they not only use them for rest & recuperation and therapy for fire fighters, serving and X-serving firefighters can also hire the cottages at a small fee to help fund the center, Jon and I both would recommend giving this a go. You can stay full board, half board, or like us self catering, the cottages have everything you need for a comfortable stay. (photo me in the kitchen, Jon did do some of the cooking too!)



We would like to thank the Fire Service Benevolent Fund for giving us this opportunity to spend a whole week together. We can now see were part of the donations given to the charity get well spent.