Hi Bob, I trained for my PPL at OBA in 2005, and had a fantastic time, met some great people, and passed my course.
I returned to OBA (Now EASA as you say) in October of last year to re-validate as I ran out of time. I again found a highly proffesional & dedicated school, and passed a full skills test agian after not flying for 5 years
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My personal reccomendation to you, is to extend your stay to 5 weeks if possible, or at least see if you can extend your return journey ticket with your airline. I did 6 weeks the first time I went out there, and passed my PPL skills test one day short of 4 weeks. I saw a few people run out of time, and have to leave without completing, which would be a real shame.
I took it quite easy, but I have a distinct advantage of being an aircraft engineer in the RAF, so didn't have to work too hard on a few of the subjects for the exams.
If you can get a few exams out of the way before you go, it will make your life a LOT easier, and take the pressure off a bit, and allow you to enjoy the flying a bit more.
You can easily learn & pass at home: Air law, Human factors, Aircraft general
Air law (parrot learning, very drull but you need to know it, it is just a case of read, re-read and sponge as much as you can each time!
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Human Factors/performance and limitations. Quite an easy and enjoyable exam.
Aircraft general- Good to learn as much as possible before you go, will help a lot.
The exams I would reccomend doing at the school:
Navigation- Much easier once you have done some flight planning
Met- As above
Aircraft Performance- Tricky to learn the graphs, easier once you have practiced during your training
Radio/comms- Much easier once you have done some real world RT
Finally, If you would like to have a chat about anything, or I can help you out in any way, please PM me your number and I can give you a call.