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 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 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...

Poppy the Beetle's new nose!

So, on Saturday last after running some clandestine errands in the morning, we ended up in Dorking for our Valentines day lunch about an hour earlier than intended - which, incidentally was going to be in the Pizza Express where we had our very first meal out together - so we took the opportunity to wander around the charity shops (Flyingpops scored some bargain items of clothing and I got a bunch of interesting books), but the real gem of the day was a magnetic red nose for Poppy -

- which defied my expectations by both staying on at speed, and not being stolen (yet) by any tiny miscreant...

Looks rather good doesn't it? If you want one you can get them for £2 at Oxfam... ;)

Lunch was superb, I can't believe how much the menu has changed since I last visited (which admittedly was probably over a year ago), for the starter I had the antipasto -

- which had three different kinds of cured meat (including an excellent Italian salami), toasted bread, sun dried tomatoes and rocket (an excellent combination) and lots of grated parmesan, followed by their new pizza range, the Romana (which are rolled much thinner and thus super crispy) -

- specifically the "Etna" which *was* (as promised) extremely spicy, but actually could have done with a few more toppings, it was like working through lots of spicy cheese and tomato followed by mini taste explosions when you hit a spicy pepper or little pile of ground beef...still, a really nice change as the menu at Pizza Express had got a little bit tired over the years... ;)

A stroll around Dorking (in pictures)

Weekend Update

Where did the weekend go? It seemed to vanish waaaay too quickly...Saturday was largely eaten by the heaps and heaps of washing that seems to have accumulated over the last couple of weeks (thanks to me being away/Flyingpops entertaining guests last weekend)...well, I say vanished - apart from an exciting time when we tried to find the source of a rather unpleasant aroma in the back of the Golf, discovered that the carpets had got very damp (somehow?) and some deer food (that had obviously slipped under the seat during our trip to Longleat!  How long ago?) had started to go mouldy and smell (not surprising)!  So we vacuumed the entire car out, then sat there with two of Flyingpops hair driers (in the middle of the road) blasting the carpets until they were dry-ish - at this point I thought it might be an idea to run the internal heaters for a while (just to be on the safe side) but having run them for no more than five minutes with the doors closed - when Flyingpops tried to start the car to get it out the way of the neighbours drive we discovered we had managed to flatten the battery...(which *can't* be right)...

So, Colin to the rescue -  drove him next to the Golf and discovered that his leisure battery was flat as a pancake too...bah...finally, with a real stretch (thank goodness we bought the most expensive, longest jump leads in the world) we managed to connect him up via the main battery and get the car to start so we could at least move it from blocking next door's drive...I mean, we don't drive the Golf a whole lot - it's just popping to and from the station each day (about 5 minutes each direction) so I guess the battery doesn't get much chance to charge, but I was rather suprised to kill it with 5 minutes on the heaters...oh well...!

Saturday night was Tim's Stag do Part 2 (the revenge) which involved much beer/football, some arm wrestling and then a rather good Thai meal...Tim and I got the train back to Redhill and then took separate cabs home (where I fell asleep on the sofa until about 4am when I decided to go to bed and wake Flyingpops up with my snoring...sorry babe)...!

To make it up to her I went and did the Tesco shopping on my own in the morning, we then watched the F1 (very good race) and then I popped Flyingpops over to (and from) Fanny's Farm Shop (I kid you not) for Gayle's hen do (sandwich/tea/cake and Cava in a tree house), during which time I played a bit of Bully on the Xbox 360 (really enjoying it, about half way through now but a bit stuck on "Lola's Race" - my arm gets too tired tapping the dash button and I loose it on one of the last couple of corners - it's about a 5 minute long race, stupid! Think I'm going to have to cheat and do it using a moped or something)...and then Sunday night I cooked a roast but Flyingpops was too full of sandwich and cake to eat much of it (oh well, more for me!)...then we watched Wife Swap (typically inflamatory pairing of a gay pair and two homophobes, but it actually worked out much better than expected)...then bath and bed...

South House, South Street, Dorking - View from the Penthouse

Aw...brings back lots of happy memories - this panoramic splice (more great finds from the archive) - living in "The Penthouse" (flats on top of South House in Dorking)...every Friday night was hilarious theatre, we used to crack open a few beers, sit out on the balcony and watch the fun when the pubs kicked out (complete with police breaking up all the fights), during the day it was a succession of people failing to parallel park (often crashing into other vehicles) oblivious to our tears of hilarity and muffled guffaws from above...at parties having paper plane distance competitions (the ultimate goal being to land on the roof of the building opposite) -

- growing the most successful tomato plants in the history of culinary horticulture (imho anyway) as the balcony was the ultimate sun-trap, and relishing the ability to wake up, throw back the curtains in the living room (the whole back wall was glass) and lord it over the Surrey Hills...what a fantastic place to live...not to mention that within 2 minutes walk was Waitrose, a Video/Game hire shop, 2 Curry houses (including the best in Dorking), 2 Chinese restaurants and an off-licence...it was practically perfect...

Of course, when it came time to move to the house, getting all the crap out was a bloody nightmare (4 flights of un-even stairs), those, I *won't* miss (especially dragging the bikes up, or 15 bags of shopping)...but the time living there was priceless...

Bocketts Farm review

So (and quite why we picked the very beginning of the Wimbledon fortnight to do this, I really cannot *begin* explain - and - having lived in Wimbledon, I am doubly guilty), today was the day we had decided to take little Alexander to celebrate (a slightly belated) birthday surprise at Bocketts Farm -

- which is actually still a working farm, as well as providing all sorts of visitor facilities (thank *goodness*) including plenty to do *indoors*...

...Alexander started (despite the rain) to get really rather excited (dashing off ahead of us across the car park!), the minute I mentioned that there might be the chance of seeing some geese -

- which, while relishing the rain, were doing so right at the extent of my zoom lens (he loved the glimpse anyway), but rather than stand and watch we dived into cover inside the main barn -

- what followed was almost an hour just following him (smiling), as he *ran* from animal to animal in amazed joy, pointed out "eep!", "raddit!", "igs!"', "tow!" and "oat!" (etc.) -


- although he missed the miserable looking Llama who some cruel git had shaved leaving an 80's footballer's haircut (he was *not* amused) -

- Anyway, at the appointed time, we went into the animal encounter room to witness (drum roll please!) the "Goat Milking"- in the poor old thing was lead (to a chorus of "Awwww!", "I don't loike it!" and "Why is it limping Mummy?" from the little kids lining the room) -

- but despite *repeated* good humoured attempts to get it to mount the milking position (including, eventually some obviously difficult "backside" encouragement), in the end the poor old thing was lead back out of the room, and a younger substitute was brought in (much to everyone's relief) -

- this new goat, called "Shandy" I think, hopped up as soon as it smelt the grub, and stood good as gold -

- until a thick creamy jug of fresh milk had been extracted (6-8 pints per day, apparently!) -

- the young man then got up, announced he was now "kn*ckered" (to a laugh from most of the watching crowd), and then a very brave little chick, and a very patient little rabbit were quickly paraded around the room, so everyone little could have a tiny gentle stroke.

Once all this was done, we all paraded out, back into the barn but it was *still* raining outside, in the lack of *much* else to do (Alexander being too young for the adventure playground) we decided to brave it anyway -

- checking out some of the larger wildlife -

- who were kicking their stable doors (I imagine as normally they would have been let out to do Pony rides by now) -

- a lot of ducks, who couldn't care less about the inclement conditions, and some wonderful gardens -

- with some incredible residents -

- (driven back by the rain) we then stopped for a bit of lunch in the large "Tea shop", which was actually a licensed restaurant, shame the toasted sandwich they brought me (Bacon and Stilton) came largely devoid of bacon, but to their credit they took it back and made me a proper one without too many excuses - "but it's just been chopped up a bit, look, we all do them differently" - which was swiftly answered by a pointing finger at Mr S's plump and fine sarnie next door, which was positively overflowing with bacon, whereas mine appeared to have 3 sliced lardons that had accidentally slipped in, after which it had obviously been run over by a traction engine), anyway - after lunch the rain had let off a little bit, so we went and took the tractor ride around the site (an extra few quid) -

- which was very exciting -

- taking us up through "Scarecrow wood" -

- which was like something out of a horror film quite honestly -

- the rotten, deformed and limp, sack covered bodies, hung from trees being snorted and snuffled around by fat looking pigs (Hannibal, anyone?) -

- anyway, Alexander seemed to enjoy every minute of it, and in fact, quite amazingly, in the distance from the top of the hill, it was quite possible to pick out Canary Wharf (all the way into central London), even on this largely rainy day!

We were driven, hanging onto our lunch, back down to the barn, and that was where the day drew to a close - and despite the weather, I think I can safely say, a lovely day was had by all! I can heartily recommend it as a fun-filled day out (if accompanied by a young family member, of course)...otherwise you would have the whole thing done in about 90 minutes... ;)