The Legoland Experience

WARNING - Sharing this post with small Lego-lovers may inspire envy and result in years of nagging, for which I take no responsibility.

Travel Tip - Legoland is best to visit when you are at least 90cm tall but even better when you are at least 120cm tall. The taller you are, the more rides you can go on.

The Legoland experience begins even before you reach Legoland. We took the train from Copenhagen to Velje, which is about half-an-hour from Legoland. As the taxi drove us through the Danish countryside (very flat, remarkably pretty), we began to see giant Lego bricks gathered in twos and threes on the verge. By the time we reached Hotel Legoland, we were primed.

Hotel Legoland is part of the whole experience and shouldn't be missed. The hotel welcomes children, really welcomes children. There are kid zones dotted throughout, where giant tubs of Lego bricks are available to play. Lego cartoons are screened in a red bus near reception. There's a games room with Nintendo DS's and Wiiiiis to play with and giant Lego characters dotted around the corridors. Each day, you can enter your Lego build in a competition and there's a treasure hunt too. All this before you even get to your room.

We stayed in a Kid's Room on Space Street, which overlooks the Star Wars display in the park. Could that have been more perfect for our little Star Wars lover? A small Lego gift was waiting on the pillow and the room also comes with boxes of mixed Lego and Duplo bits to play with. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and had plenty to keep us busy while we waited to go to the park on Sunday and Monday.

The hotel has two restaurants and the family buffet was the big hit with Miles. Apparently, children all over the world eat spaghetti bolognase, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, corn ... and chips shaped like Lego bricks.

The park itself is a mix of Lego builds and rides, separated into different themes (Adventureland, Pirateland, Legoredo, Polar Land, Lego City). We easily filled two days exploring, riding the Lego trains and monorails, trying out the many rides and repeating some.

October proved to be a great time to go. The weather was very variable, sunny one second, raining the next but (as Jim is sick of me saying) the Danes have fantastic wet weather gear and just keep on going - so we did too, breaking in the Aldi snow jacket. But in October, the crowds were minimal. The park was busy but we didn't have to queue long for any ride.

Another warning, a number of the rides have little roller coasters. I went on the Dragon, thinking it was a bit like a ghost train and ended up so scared, I cried. I'm sharing this because if I don't, Jim and Miles will. I HATE roller coasters but did very well on spinning barrels and rocking pirate ships.

And of course, there's the Lego builds themselves - minature towns, wonders of the world, Pirate scenes and pyramids and all sorts of things.

All this, and Miles got his Legoland driver's licence too (but you have to be at least 7 years old to do that).

Christmas Past

Christmas is as good as over for another year. Once again, I cooked Nigella's fantastic turkey. Here it is in the nappy bucket (well cleaned and never actually used for soaking grotty nappies), soaking amongst oranges, onions, cloves, peppercorns, maple syrup, mustard seeds, cinnamon sticks and other fragrant things. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph it after it had been roasted. You will have to imagine it coming out of the oven, it's skin basted to a gorgeous rich brown courtesy of more maple syrup and butter. I love roasting the turkey this way. I love the process of soaking it in the bucket and adding all the gorgeous spices (and ice, lots of ice - unlike Nigella, I am not preparing for Christmas in a cold climate). And the best part is that it produces a wonderful, moist turkey. Just as she said it would.

We have done all things Santa this Christmas, except sitting on his knee. Mr M has never been willing to do that. But Mr M did write a letter (okay, I wrote it, he dictated it) and received a reply. We went to visit Santa's house in the North Pole (aka Weetangera). We listened to the Wiggles sing Santa's Rockin' every night for a week and we are still listening to it. We left out supper for Santa and the reindeer and they must have really loved it because they left only crumbs. And since Christmas Day, Mr M has asked when Santa will be coming again ... every single day. Sometimes more than once. We only have a year to wait.

Creativity

In the past couple of months, we have reached that stage in a small boy's life where we have to 'make things'. For many months painting and play-doh satisfied the making urge but, although Mr M is now painting figures (see his first effort above - and, of course, it's a portrait of The Wiggles), we seem to spend our weekends 'making things'. Last weekend I was called on to make a 'Batman helicopter'. We have also made cars and boats for Mr M to sit in, computers so he can play 'Libraries' ('What book would you like today? Let me check ... you're in luck!'), his first book and special beds so he can have 'a rest'.

This phase is a challenge because I have never been 'crafty'. Except for doing a bit of knitting, I don't experience the urge to do craft. I don't make softies or scrapbook or sew. And I haven't yet organised myself a 'really useful box', although I am often inspired to get one after watching an episode of Playschool. But it's amazing what you can create with a few yellow straws and a toilet roll or two. Aluminium foil comes in handy too. And I know I'm going to get better at it, because I have years of making ahead of me. I've been warned by friends - I won't be able to get away with a school project about volcanoes that doesn't include building a model of one.

Sometimes, though, a boy is left to his own devices. This is most likely to be when his mum is just crafted out. And that's when the creativity really begins. Here is Mr M's first 'installation', a creative stacking of toys in the kitchen that took hours to get just right. All those toys have been placed very deliberately in the 'sculpture' simply to create a thing of beauty (in someone's eyes at least). And if you look very carefully, the final object to be placed was a small boy himself.

This Week's Blessings

Our family has grown this week - by two. Not twins but two little boys born on opposite sides of the world, and on the same day Canberra-time.

In 1976, we had two babies born into the family. My brother and his first wife gave birth to their third child, a boy, in March. In November, my eldest sister gave birth to her third child, a girl. These were my third nephew and my third niece. I was nine years old and already had some notoriety for being an aunt at an age when my friends were more likely to be welcoming new brothers or sisters than nieces and nephews. I remember Tony being born in a hospital on the north coast of New South Wales and leaving school early in the day to drive the couple of hours from Sydney to see him. I don't have as clear a memory of Linda's birth eight months later - although it is possible I was also able to leave school early in the day to visit my new niece.

Some 32 years later, Tony is a father for the first time. His wife, Lisa, gave birth to Bailey in Canberra in the early evening of Wednesday. A few hours later, we heard that Linda had given birth to Rowyn in Canada. Rowyn is Linda's third child, her first boy. And although the birth dates are different due to international date lines, the closeness of the births reminded me that I have always thought of Tony and Linda as being linked in some way. Probably this is because, until they were born, my nieces and nephews arrived annually - 1971 Vanessa; 1972 Donna; 1973 Geoffrey; 1974 Gary. Tony and Linda upset the pattern and shared a birth year.

Bailey and Rowyn are continuing another pattern too. Since Jack was born nearly eight years ago, all the babies born on 'my side' of the family have been boys.* And there have now been seven of them. Until Jack's birth, my nieces and nephews were evenly divided, my great-nieces and great-nephews more of a mix.

Happy birthday, Bailey and Rowyn.

* Families being the complicated things they are, this statement may not be correct. Gary has, I think, two children but for reasons known only to him, I haven't had an opportunity to meet them. Nor has anyone else in the extended family. Gary, Garoldo, GET IN TOUCH!

I'm Late, I'm Late

I think I have well and truly missed this week's deadline. And the only thing I can blame is 'Winter'. Since Sunday evening it has been bitterly cold at night in Canberra. We have finally turned on the heater. The hot water bottles have been taken out of the cupboard and are being used consistently. The car windscreen has been covered in a thin film of ice in the morning. Now, when Mr M asks 'Is it winter?', I have begun to say 'yes', instead of trying to explain what autumn is. And the result of all this is that I have been far more tempted to stay in bed with Mr M when I lie down with him to help him go to sleep (and probably that is something all the books tell you not to do - but it works), than I have been to get up again and spend a chilly hour in front of the computer.

Tonight, though, I have decided to put my middle-of-the-night wakefulness to use. Instead of lying in bed in the warmth, I'm up and at it. I have written my to-do list for tomorrow's/today's working day. I have folded the washing (the thing I really hate about winter is how difficult it can be to get the washing dry but I'm not going to give in and buy a clothes dryer. Not having one is the small thing I do to help the environment). I have sent an email I meant to send at 8pm. And I'm finally sitting down to blog. When I do go back to bed, which should be soon, I'll be doing so with a terrific sense of achievement.

Isn't it amazing what you can get done when the household sleeps?

PS If you are interested in the experience of the 2020 Summit, Alison Croggan has written a terrific piece about being a member of the 'Creatives' and posted it on Sarsaparilla. It's a great insider's view of the day. I'm sure the 2020 Summit was an event full of faults and a huge question remains as to what will happen to all the ideas, but I do think the summit was a very bold, very big idea itself and at the least it has signposted that the times are changing. (Maybe that's 2am optimism creeping in. Perhaps the times aren't changing, they are simply being dressed up in new clothes. I'm still hoping, though, that the Emperor won't be discovered wandering around in 'his all-together'.)

Party Time

Every morning, Mr M asks 'Is it my birthday today?' He is, it seems, very keen to cease being three-and-a-bit and to celebrate being four. After months without any birthday parties to go to, April, then, is quite a challenge for a young man who is counting the days until he is a birthday boy again.

Here he is celebrating our friend Leo's second birthday in Yass a week ago (thanks to Leo's Uncle Sam for the photo). Leo missed out on his first birthday party - he was ill with chicken pox. But his mum and dad made up for it with a wonderful pirate party. Golden pirate coins were scattered on the ground for the treasure hunt. A treasure chest was discovered hiding beneath a tree, filled with pirate booty for the young pirates, including pirate eye patches and silky sashes. The pirate flag could be raised and lowered and raised and lowered and raised and ... by even the smallest of deck hands. And there was a park with the most enormous slippery slide! Pirate dreams were made of this.

This week we have celebrated a birthday closer to home. Mr M insisted on being the chief parcel unwrapper but has since graciously wrapped up all his Wiggle dolls and given them to me as gifts. And he's decided that really what I need most is a Shrek birthday cake (we might have to wait for the weekend for that).

At the end of the day, I thanked him for his gift and for being such a good boy on my birthday. His reply? 'It's my pleasure.' I guess he's learning something after all.

Good Intentions

I had intended to write a long post about joining the crowds on the lawns of Parliament House for last week's National Apology to the Stolen Generations. But my evenings have been the victims of Mr M's disrupted sleep patterns. Some nights, bedtime is pushed back because he has succumbed to an afternoon sleep. Other nights, like tonight, bedtime is pushed back because he has developed a range of strategies to avoid closing his eyes. They include choosing at least six bedtime stories; asking for stories to be told after the light is turned out (Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a current favourite); organising four Wiggles dolls and Buzz and Woody so they can sleep on the bed too; changing beds (it's easier to look out the window from my bed); deciding he simply has to get out of bed, go outside and look at the moon and the stars; getting up to check on whatever it is Daddy is doing; asking for Daddy to lie down with us on the bed; asking for the ukelele to play him to sleep.

Now, a week after the event, my thoughts and comments seem a bit superfluous. So much has already been written and said and I still haven't managed to get my photos (which aren't great but give you a general idea) off the camera. Maybe tomorrow. I've decided that I really can't surpass Stephanie Trigg's summary of the day on Humanities Researcher. She might have experienced the Apology from Melbourne but it sounds as if her experience of the day was very close to mine in Canberra. And Ampersand Duck has some great photos of her experience of the day. There were so many ways to experience the day. Vicki's class was one of many that stopped lessons to watch the live broadcast. She wrote:

It was amazing to watch it with children who were so in tune to what it
was all about. The discussions after were so heart felt. One boy
broke down later on he was so relieved.

This image that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald has become one of my favourites from the day. It was taken by Andrew Taylor. It demonstrates that the day heralded the beginning of reconciliation on a number of levels. What do you think they all talked about as they sat in a row waiting for the Parliamentary Sitting to commence? What a pity Mr Howard wasn't able or didn't feel able to join them.

The day has given me a lot to think about. The importance of saying 'sorry' to enable other changes to take place. The terrible, often dishonest ways in which children were taken from their families. The way governments and churches and individuals let those children down, promising a better life but leaving a significant number of them to suffer mistreatment, neglect and abuse. But two issues have dominated my mind. The first is leadership. It seems to me at this moment (I'm reserving the right to change my mind) that Mr Howard's approach to leadership was very parental. He knew what was best for the country and heaven help anyone who tried to disagree. Perhaps it was the kind of leadership we needed for a while, only time will tell. Mr Rudd, in contrast, seems to understand the importance of the symbolic gesture, of the possibility that leadership offers to encourage people to do better and be better than they thought possible. It is uplifting - and that was the mood of the day.

The other issue that I've been wrestling with came, I think, out of Dr Nelson's speech. I'll have to check Hansard but he said something along the lines of good intentions having unintended consequences. If ever there is a lesson we should learn from the experience of the Stolen Generation, this is it. Whatever the intentions behind the policy of removal, the consequences for many were ghastly. Perhaps we should give all government policy an 'unintended consequences' test. What will be the unintended consequences of the current Intervention in the Northern Territory? What will be the unintended consequences of the war in Iraq?

We ended this momentous week with another short trip to the coast. Mr M finally made it back into the sea - although it took three days of playing near the rockpools, playing in the rockpools and filling castle moats with sea water to get him there. The weather was exquisite, the sea was a beautiful turquoise and we saw three dolphins chasing waves across the bay.

The Last Week of the First Month

I'm trying to do too many things at once this evening. On the DVD player is the Shakespeare Retold episode, Macbeth, starring James McAvoy and Keeley Hawkes. Unlike the retellings of Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, which I loved, this new Macbeth isn't holding my attention (although turning the three witches into three garbage men was quite inspired). I've been browsing the internet instead. Very addictive and a complete timewaster. Suddenly 90 minutes have disappeared with little or nothing to show for it.

This week just passed, the last week of January, has been dominated by medical matters. On Thursday, my portacath was removed (it's the little port that was popped into my chest just below my collarbone to make giving me chemo easier - and it did make having chemo easier. I didn't have to suffer any of that horrid searching for veins that many people have to go through). Having it removed turned out to be pretty easy. My favourite anaesthetist was with me, knocked me out and brought me round without any ill effects. I took painkillers on Friday and had my last hit on Saturday night. Of course, I still have to remind Mr M that I have a sore chest when he jumps a bit too exuberantly. And I will have a scar but it will be a very thin, neat one - not the big clunky thing that was there previously.

I had thought that the removal of the portacath might bring a sense of completion (I'm not going to use that terrible word closure) to last year's experiences. I'm still waiting. Instead, my eyes have just lifted to the next goal on the horizon - my first post-surgery mammogram in March. After that, there will be the next checkup and then the next and before I know it years will have gone by. In the meantime, I have most of February off work, finally taking the rec leave I was intending to take last April, before I became ill. No trip to Shanghai because of last week's surgery but I hope we will get some nice days at the beach.

Milestones

It has been a big week for Mr M. Back to playschool on Wednesday, he enjoyed his last two days as a playschool toddler. Next week, he'll be joining the junior preschoolers in another room. Fortunately, one of his favourite teachers will be with him, as will a number of his pals. But the prospect of moving has caused him some anxiety. We tried to allay it by baking a 'farewell' cake for him to take in on Thursday. Of course, it couldn't be just any cake. It had to be a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' cake! This caused me some anxiety. I had white icing, store-bought red icing to pipe with (having never piped icing before) and a Thomas sticker squirrelled out of a sticker book given to Mr M at Christmas. The result was, I thought, truly horrible but when Mr M saw it on Thursday morning, he declared it 'perfect'. If only he was always that easy to please.

Last night, he had his first sleepover. Completely unplanned but perhaps that was the best way. We were invited to dinner at his cousins' and had a lovely evening sitting under the pergola in the rain (what relief it was after the heat of the last few days - the thing I love most about a Canberra summer, I think, is that it comes to an end) talking with family. Amy and Ruby did a wonderful job of babysitting before dinner, encouraging the littlies to 'be a fruit'. Mr M chose his favourite, watermelon. Then he decided he'd like to stay the night. So he did - although I suspect he might almost have been sent home, as he partied on until 11. That, though, meant he slept through the night and was quite determined he was sleeping over again tonight.

But tonight we have decided to try for another milestone. Mr M is having his first night without a nappy! It's been a long time since he's had a wet nappy at night so, with the heat giving him a heat rash, he decided he'd like to try going without. Fingers crossed I'm not changing sheets at 3am.

J took this photo of the back garden in early spring. If you stand in the same spot now, it is impossible to see the shed. The peach tree is heavy with rusty peaches and I've discovered the ease of making peach granita (this recipe isn't the one I used but it gives you the idea) and the joy of eating it in the heat of summer. The boughs of the Japanese plum are dragging with the weight of the fruit and the nectarine (whose fruit never seems to ripen before the birds get it) is now entwined with the grapevine. Tonight we ate the first plums from the tree behind the shed. This means that soon it will be time to try to make plum jam or plum sauce. Which probably means that the hottest day of summer is still ahead of us.