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...

Top Gear Filming Canary Wharf

Wow, it seems like *ages* since anything interesting awaited me upon exiting the tube station at Canary Wharf, but today, a big crowd had formed around a selection of small cars, wherein (you can just see him leaning by the door of this one) Jeremy Clarkson was interviewing whoever was driving it -

- and behind him, if you look carefully, is the tiny Richard Hammond (looking bored)-

- so (and I'm just guessing here), it looks like they were busy filming a feature for the BBC show Top Gear...

So keep an eye out for me if you watch the show, I was in the background (taking these pictures) in a number of shots with my trusty(ish) Nokia N73... ;)