Lego World

This week has bought forth the Winter holiday's in Denmark, a perfect opportunity to escape the routines of life and head off to the slopes for a week of fresh air, fresh snow, fresh food and apres ski. Sounds very nice but I do not possess the graceful agility to ski. In fact I am lacking in the basic agility to even stand up once I have metre long flat slippery ski's stuck to my feet. Dignity is not to be mine and the resulting day spent lying down in cold wet snow does nothing for either my ego or my happiness.

Needless to say we were home in Denmark this week and the latter end was quite a challenge. The unit that supplies gas to my house stopped working and it took two days of waiting in the freezing cold house with three little boys before the gas man decided to arrive to fix things. The boys were bored and I was running out of ideas. Skiing was almost a more preferable option and quite possibly a warmer one too.

Thankfully by Friday all was restored and I set off with them for the Bella Centre and the enormity that is Lego World. Once a year Lego take over the entire conference centre and fill it with, yes it does seem obvious, Lego. I knew to expect Lego but having never been before I had no concept of how it would be presented. We joined the crowd snaking from the car park into the building to be greeted by two storm troopers, it was going to be fun.

The entrance building played host to the Lego shop, discreet enough for the children to miss and second fiddle anyway to the mound of Lego laid out on a green carpet just waiting for eager fingers to pick up. We had arranged to meet up with friends and so were pressed to move further into the halls in order to find them which was a good distraction. At each turn there were more and more exhibits to catch our attention and having started out thinking I was taking the boys for a fun day I soon entered into the excitement and wonder of the place.

We spent a lot of time in the Lego Star Wars section, the highlight of which was being able to sit down and build models with one of the product designers. He was so welcoming to the boys and they thoroughly enjoyed listening to him talk about his job as he patiently answered their questions. Since meeting him my eldest has mounted a campaign to build a slide in our next house in place of stairs as that is what they have in the offices at Lego. It's apparently used primarily to test the cars, once built, but surely proves irresistible on a very quite day at the office?

Aside from Star Wars there were many other areas in the big hall, Ninjago, Duplo, City, Princess catwalks and the freshly launched Friends range aimed at the girls market. There was actually almost too much to see and we did leave having seen little over half the exhibits. Happily we had time to have our names engraved on a piece of Lego and yes I absolutely did do my own name too.

At the end of the afternoon we found an enormous Duplo area and a bench, the remaining five boys walked out into the sea of bricks and characters remaining thoroughly engrossed for a good hour. Their Mummy's sat and talked and were grateful for the huge efforts Lego must have put into creating LegoWorld. It was the perfect way to end our visit, that last hour refocused tired children and let them enter into a make believe world of their own, one built entirely of course by Lego bricks.

We even spotted some Lego men taking in the slopes and enjoying a chair lift. They were poised and elegant and didn't seem to be feeling the cold too much. I think I will happily leave the skiing to them.