PAUL PARKER lets his hair down with his children deep in the forests of Cumbria

Almost as soon as we arrived, the girls spotted a hare.

"Look, Dad, there's a rabbit!" the seven-year-old shouted. "It's a hare," I replied. "It's bigger than a rabbit and has a longer tail."

"Look, Mum, there's a hare," said the little one, our knowledgeable four-year-old. "It's bigger than a rabbit and has a longer tail," she added - and rose ten feet in her own eyes.

We saw the hare as it scampered through the trees in our cul-de-sac of wooden lodges at the Oasis Forest Holiday Village near Penrith in Cumbria - a holiday centre for the 90s.

In the 1950s when Billy Butlin opened his now world-famous holiday camps, he played on the fact that people at the time generally led reasonably ordered lives and were on the lookout for post-war excitement. So Butlins offered relatively cheap holidays parodied in the television comedy series Hi-de-Hi.

In the 1990s we have developed hurried lifestyles which are stressing us out and, though the Oasis village offers 100 things to do, it is a holiday of two halves - a break in the country and also a chance to let your hair down and live it up.

Some go to Oasis to ride hire bikes round the village, others jog, others spend hours in the World of Water, go orienteering, go on nature walks, play tenpin bowling, watch a show, visit a restaurant, play sports in the Country Club or chill out in the Sanctuary Spa.

Oasis accommodates about 4,000 people and is looking to expand by a further 600 - but at no time did we feel suffocated by crowds of people.

My Oasis was the times I spent alone in the very comfortable three-bedroom lodge, filling the dishwasher, listening to Radio 3 and reading my new cookery book about fish.

The children's Oasis was hiring bikes: "Mum, Dad, these bikes are better than the ones we have at home, can we keep them?" they chimed.

They enjoyed being outdoors, after years of drilling from Dad that they WILL enjoy playing out, walks in the country, strolls up mountains, back-packing round Europe - that sort of thing. So they demanded endless bike rides with Mum - as Dad has failed to ride a bike and the trikes were all booked by the time we got round to wanting to hire one.

They also enjoyed regular trips to the new and free adventure playground and would have slept there had their stomachs not told them they needed supper. Or was it Mum and Dad dragging them back to the lodge with tear-filled eyes because they were exhausted and hungry?

In the Butterfly Village Centre, which has a glass roof shaped like a butterfly in full flight, the focal point is the World of Water which was free and included a series of pools - one with a wave machine - and two flume slides.

We climbed to the top of the steps leading to the snake-like slides and learned from one of those children who always wants to tell everybody what to do - a teacher in the making: "That's the easy slow one and that's the fast one."

Being scaredy cats, we plumped for the slow one. Child Number One went first. "That was great, Dad," she shouted as I splashed out the other end with my heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, large and small bowel in my mouth.

I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to admit that Big Fat Daddy, as I am known, had feared for his life halfway round because he got stuck at one of the tighter curves in the slide. We waited for Child Number Two to emerge who just looked blank but also kept quiet.

We all waited for Mum to arrive. She is not a woman to keep her feelings to herself. "That was horrendous!" she shrieked as she struggled to get out of the way of the next victim. "I never want to do anything like that in my life again!"

The Butterfly Centre also has a series of restaurants, bars and an amusement area and Tenpin Bowling.

I don't know what came over me. Perhaps it was fatherly bravado - not wanting the children to think Dad is a useless lump of lard. Not only is he unable to ride a bike - but his bad back stops him from joining in the Tenpin Bowling.

So, despite a knowing frown of disapproval from Mrs Parker, who feared I would have to lie on the floor afterwards and let the children trample all over me, I changed from three to four players. Mrs Parker won the day and I survived using lighter weight bowls.

It was beginning to turn into an action-packed holiday when we then went for a ride on the lake on a pedalo - but the pain of the bowling soon evaporated when food moved onto the horizon with a meal at the Quayside Restaurant - a chance to put my new knowledge about fish into action.

The Quayside Restaurant showed us what Oasis is all about. Our plush three-bedroom accommodation would normally cost £500 for the weekend. It was smart, clean, included a maid service and a basic food pack came free. But we were left wondering why it cost so much even though we were in Oasis at the height of the season.

The restaurant gave us a chance to work it out - service. You were paying for all the people employed to make sure you had a good time. There was a mix of ages working at Oasis and all of them were helpful and pleasant.

The restaurant presented us with good quality food and had staff who, rushed though they were when there were people queuing at the door, still found time to tell me where the lovely new potatoes had come from.

We had a wonderful time but felt the basic cost of the accommodation was high - although our lodge was really for six people.

Some friends who returned from Oasis a few days before we departed for the village had a great holiday as a party of eight which helped spread the cost.

Mrs Parker's Oasis was the time she spent one evening being pampered in the Sanctuary Spa while Mr Parker had so much fun with the children he forgot to bath them and feared a roasting.

But the Sanctuary Spa's hydro therapy pool did its stuff and Mrs Parker almost overlooked this misdemeanour which left me wondering if we should forget plans for a loft conversion and install a sauna at home instead.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.