Denbies Raptor Show

While the actual word that came out of his mouth was "Owls!" (well done Animal book/drill), that -look- *definitely* said "Woah...Just hold on one minute while we get this straight...these things are actually *REAL*?"...

Brilliant capture by Flyingpops... ;)

Lego House Demolished

James May Lego House Demolition 5
Originally uploaded by Cybermyth13.

Lego House Demolition 4
Originally uploaded by Cybermyth13.

Just found these pictures on Flickr and thought it only fair to share...so there we go, full circle...it's funny to think it was only there for such a tiny amount of time and now gone forever!

Anyway, if you want to see some of my pictures and read about it being built (and our other adventures around Denbies), head in this direction...

Denbies 3D Cinema and Wine Tasting

So after finishing our rather bumpy ride (although tiny Thomas didn't seem to care) around the hills of the Denbies estate on the "land train", we pushed our joints back into place and wandered back into the main building to join the queue standing at the little clock announcing the time of the next wine tasting tour, starting with the 3D Cinema experience (oooh!)...

There were actually a couple of different options (varying in price) for doing the tour, the most expensive of which included some canapes to eat while you sipped, but we went for the cheaper version...all of them include all the various parts of the tour, it's just what you eat or drink at the end that depends how hard it hits the wallet (and actually, none of them were over £20)...

The cinema was actually quite clever, a ring of projectors beam a (pretty seamless) series of video clips, during which you can crane your head (or even walk around) to see in 360 degrees as tractors drive between the vines, or dangle from the bottom of a helicopter as it flies over the Surrey Hills (all very clever)...

...and not wishing to spoil the experience, the presentation mostly harps on about how similar conditions in Dorking are to the Champagne region in France and how grumpy they are that they can't call their sparkling wine by the French name (even though increasing amounts of grapes used to make the French version are being grown in England and shipped over there for brewing and bottling, as global warming starts to strike - a rather cheeky development, but where would we be without Champagne)...?

The highlight of this section (and to experience it you will need to stand around the outside - those seated in the middle felt nothing) was when the video showed lots of corks being popped and tiny spray guns go off all around the room showering everyone's necks with chilled water...I found that very amusing... ;)

Next, some doors on the far side of the cinema are opened, and beyond a series of wooden carriages are waiting -

- which take you on an *extremely* short trip around the factory floor -

- in our case past all the workers busily completely ignoring the wine making facilities, just putting together hundreds of Lego Bricks -

- including sections of the (yet to be assembled) roof...

Then it was down into the cellar (a bit of a "Was that it?" sort of ride) -

- where they keep the barrels carved from the oak trees that fell down during the Great Storm of 1987 (perfectly useless for keeping wine as English Oak doesn't allow anything stored inside to breathe, but a nice addition to the decor)...

We tried three wines, each grape from each one was pointed out to us on the campaign map on the wall, and actually, each one was jolly nice, dry (as English wines are apt to be) but then that suits me perfectly (not having much of a sweet tooth)... ;)

So all in all, a very enjoyable day, discovered that English wines are only going to get better as global warming turns the South of England into Northern France, and that the French are already panicking and bulk buying Kent...Cheers! ;)

Denbies Vineyard tour

Okay, back from holiday now, but certainly not quite back to "normal", I'll continue updating as and when I can, it just seems that all my blogging time is vanishing into a baby shaped hole at the moment! Anyway, let's go back to the start of last week, on Monday (to celebrate Nanjan's birthday) we arranged a visit to Denbies to do the wine tasting and land train tour -

- having had our interest piqued when we went to check out James May's Lego house...We arrived just in time to miss one of the tours starting times (on the hour, every hour until closing time, despite what it says on their website), so opted to go and have a drink and a snack in the (rather nice) canteen -

- after which we had a little look around the gift shop (more signs of the Lego invasion in evidence) -


- and then waited in reception until it was time for our land-train ride around the vineyard -

- that bit of the tour cost us £4.50 each (which was reasonable considering the length of the ride was just under an hour)...

Anyway, when everyone finally managed to climb aboard (a surprising number of fellow riders were present, considering this was an overcast Monday afternoon in term-time) -

- we headed off up into the Surrey Hills (for a rather bumpy ride) dragged along by a Land Rover while listening to some reasonably interesting commentary on the history of the site (and wine making in general) -

- pausing at the top of the hill (briefly) to admire the site from above (actually a staggeringly impressive sight with Box Hill in the background) -

- and then halted again for a slightly longer amount of time for a short talk by the driver -

- about the previous and current owners of the land and how the landscape ended up with grapes all over it (won't spoil the story)...

On the way back down (the land-train does a loop at the big house), we stopped to admire the Lego House (still no roof on it, some technical problems apparently, meaning they are getting rather behind schedule)-

- and learned that when they are all done, James May is going to come and do his filming (trying to actually live there for a few days) and then the whole thing is going to be shipped to the Legoland theme park..So the window of opportunity to return to get a shot of it in a completed form is pretty slim! Oh well, I'll do my best, but no promises...here is one more shot, just to put the house in context in the valley -

- and then we were whisked back down the hill ready to join the wine tasting tour starting shortly!

More later on... ;)

James May Lego House update #2

So Sunday we popped back over to Dorking (to the Denbies estate) to see what the progress was on James May's Lego House project (our previous visit being something of a let down), this time (thankfully) there was *much* more to see, starting with the signs leading you (on a bit of a roundabout) route up to the site of the house itself -

- on a ridge, high above the complex below -

- the walk up took about fifteen minutes I guess (although that is at my brisk walking pace), the terrain is somewhat uneven and rocky and the paths do get quite steep in places (especially when you reach the house itself), so if you are planning a trip it's probably wise to bring some sensible shoes (and perhaps something to drink if it's a hot day) -

- there are a lot of grapes you could try and eat if parched, but I'm not sure Chardonnay grapes are good for eating (I didn't try)...

Anyway, reaching the house itself, it's clear that it's not *completely* made from Lego, if you look up towards the top (where they are still building) there is a very obvious timber frame in evidence (not exactly cheating though, as my normal brick house also has one, I guess) -

- there are also a *huge* number of boxes laying around, which (I'm guessing) used to contain Lego bricks...

If you look closely at the walls, you will notice that they are peppered with "window" bricks, just to afford a little ambient light inside, but also the odd very large crack -

- where the bricks are starting to come apart (possibly something to do with the use of various different colours of bricks, which would, most probably, expand and contract at different rates as the sun warms them up) -

- there was also, inexplicably, one small section where the uniform use of colours has been thrown out the window, and random colours were used...

...oh and (of course) James May's signature on one of the corners (with the year of construction), hinting that the structure might be a semi-permanent feature of the estate, perhaps... ;)
Around the back (necessitating increasingly long looping uphill/downhill walks around long avenues of vines) -

- you can see boxes of the larger blocks used for construction -

- if you check out this shot you get the idea -

- each of the larger (hollow) bricks is constructed from the smaller Lego bricks, they have then been laid in rows around the timber frame and then, perhaps, filled with builders expanding foam (well, that's what I would do, anyway)... ;)

So there we go...if you fancy popping along, that is all you can expect to see, don't think you'll be able to run up and down the Lego stairs or flush the Lego toilet - James May has posted security guards (really) to keep everyone at a safe distance...

Oh, and it was only upon getting back down from the ridge that I spotted the wally trolley (presumably) taking people up to see it in more leisurely fashion...Oh well... ;)

More pictures here on the Lego House Flickr Stream (if you like this sort of thing)...

James May Lego House update

So we went over to Denbies in Dorking on Sunday (didn't bother going on Saturday as it was pretty stinky weather for most of the day) -

- to check out the Lego house...we found some evidence of what had been going on right away, plenty of signs directing people to various car parks around the place-

- and to the location of the build itself (a rather small area just outside the farm shop) and apart from a couple of guys busy packing up tables and chairs, the *only* sign of real Lego we found when we got there was that was a small donation bucket by the entrance...

Not sure how helpful the tiny Lego men and women are going to be in constructing a house, but it was very kind of whoever donated them to think they might be... ;)

Anyway, while Flyingpops and Nanjan sensibly sat down and waited in the sunshine for someone they could ask about what was going on (this chap wasn't terribly helpful)-

- I ran around the place to see if I could find any evidence of the house itself, spotting what certainly looked like some very interesting potential walks in the process (and rather a lot of grapes for that matter)-


- the site being crisscrossed by public footpaths, but failing miserably, I returned to the others to discover that there really wasn't anything to see at this stage - speaking to the guys moving the tables had revealed that apparently all they had done on Saturday was arrange volunteers to build a selection of slightly larger blocks out of the smaller ones (which had then been put carefully in storage) and lay a large concrete foundation (as the house was reckoned to end up weighing quite a considerable amount upon completion)...they had further been told that it could take anything up to three weeks(!) to get to the stage where there's anything close to an actual house to photograph...so my advice? Don't go rushing over there like we did...it'll be much more exciting in a couple of weeks time...

I'm just glad we didn't have to drive very far to find out that there wasn't anything to see...! We were pretty far from the only ones trying their luck too, the place was absolutely full of curious people nosing around - Denbies really missed a trick there - not even the coffee shop was open to take advantage of all that passing trade!

Update - We have had another visit, lots more to see here...!

James May builds a full size Lego House

Oh this is waaaaay too juicy to save for Friday links...James May (of Top Gear fame) is looking for volunteers to help him build a full sized house entirely from Lego Bricks...the kicker? He's building it in Denbies Wine Estate, in Dorking...(about 11 miles from home)...!

Three million Lego bricks were delivered to Denbies last Friday, and building commences *this* Saturday on August 1st... ;)

Think I know what I'm doing on Saturday... ;)

Update - (with pictures) - the Lego house when we went to visit on Sunday...