The Covid Party

After last year's trip to The Fens, we repeated a trip to a log cabin, only this time going to Sherwood Forest - home of Robin Hood.

With Covid cases rising, and my sister working in a hospital, we took some Lateral Flow Tests before we left. All were negative so after work we began our journey for a weekend away.

We unfortunately had to leave a little bit later than we'd have liked, and also needed to travel via Milton Keynes to pick up my sister and her boyfriend. It was also a horrific day - with much of the journey up the M1 being through torrential rain.

After stopping en route for dinner, we eventually arrived at the forest just before 9pm. There was a barrier at the entrance and we were provided with the code in advance. When we arrived though, there was a car in front who had no idea what the code was. We then had to endure the arduous process of one of the passengers getting out of the car, phoning up to find out the code and then driving so slowly to the reception...

Then at reception they hadn't prefilled in any of the details and didn't know the car's registration number. Thankfully by this stage we were able to be served by someone else, get the keys and head to our cabin.

But then, we needed to head straight back out again to go and grab some food for our weekend trip. By the time we arrived back at the cabin and got to get in the hot tub for the first time it was gone 10 - thought at least it had stopped raining!

We had a catch up and enjoyed some drinks before heading back in to play some games. However after a really long day we were all pretty tired, and so headed to bed.

None of us got a great sleep that night, but nevertheless felt a bit fresher in the morning and after having some breakfast we headed out to explore Sherwood Forest itself.

We headed out in the car just 10 minutes before reaching the village of Edwinstowe. After parking up, it was only a short walk to the visitor centre for Sherwood Forest.

After walking through the visitor centre, we began following the paths to the Major Oak, supposedly the shelter where Robin Hood and his Merry Men would stay. This Oak Tree is around 800-1000 years old and is only still surviving due to the huge supports in place for it's overloaded canopy.

After a nice, but short walk, we headed back to the cabin for some time in the hot tub, before playing some games. Myself and my sister were both feeling pretty tired after the busy times and lack of sleep, so had a nap before coming back to play some more games and the have some dinner.

A quiz had been advertised at 6, so we headed over in good time, only to find there was no one there, so headed back to play some games by ourselves!

We then headed back into the hot tub for a bit, before playing some final games. However by now we were all feeling petty tired, and so headed for a relatively early night.

The next day was our last, but we didn't need to leave until late. We all awoke to find we had various degrees of colds - hardly surprising as the country was full of it. Nevertheless we had breakfast, and then went for a little walk around the forest area of Sherwood Pines.

After getting back we got in the hot tub for the final time, before playing a few games. It was only early afternoon but feeling tired, and with a long drive we decided to start heading off now.

Stopping for some food on the way, we eventually arrived home, unpacked our stuff and then took an early night - it had been a busy few days

Or so we thought... at around 10pm, I awoke to find my sister ringing me... she had just done a lateral flow and found it was positive. She had Covid, and it was so strong she must have had it all weekend - explains the colds. We decided to take some tests ourselves, and instantly Chris's came back screaming positive... uh oh... mine was weak but also positive. We'd had a Covid Party...

Turns out Chris must coincidently, like my sister, have brought it with him, and so we'd spent the entire weekend spreading it around. We'd managed to dodge it since the start of the pandemic, but finally it had got us, and it meant the rest of the week was a write off. But don't worry - I did live to tell the tale!