Jacob Weights on his 6 months ‘half birthday’

Originally uploaded by John Barnabas.

Our No. 3 grandchild, Jacob, is six months old today. Happy ‘half birthday’, Jakey!

Technorati Tags: grandchild

Ethan on the Legoland carousel. Emily is in the purple teeshirt

Originally uploaded by John Barnabas.

Erica and I had a great family weekend with Ethan and Emily, two of our grandchildren, and their parents, Alex and Charlie. We took them all to Legoland Windsor on Saturday (24 June) to celebrate Ethan’s 6th birthday.

We struggled through the traffic that was heading for the races at Royal Ascot - stretch and ultra-stretch limos, Jaguars, Rollers, mini-buses, coaches, all filled with women with large and ornate hats, men with top-hats and morning coats. Who says Britain is a classless society? We took a signed diversion. The sign promised it would be a longer but much faster route to Legoland - the only problem was the first diversion sign was the only diversion sign, so we relied on our sat nav. The route took us through a residential back road, past a much needed filling station and back onto the route we would have taken anyway. Alex and Charlie took an even longer route through Windsor Great Park.

Anyway, we eventually arrived. The adults were desperate for coffee, the kids were desperate to get down to the real business of the day - the rides and attractions. The adults won the first round!

Legoland Windsor is on a hillside overlooking the flat lands east towards Heathrow airport and on to London. From the top we could see one plane after another taking off from Heathrow, a procession that lasted all day, hundreds upon hundreds of people projected into the air and heading off across the world.

There’s no doubt that Legoland Windsor is a pretty good theme park for young children. Everything seems to have been designed with them in mind. Ethan would have been quite happy just to look at Miniland, Lego’s version of some major European cities - mind you, anyone hoping to gain a sense of London’s topography from the Miniland layout would find themselves completely disoriented in the real city. There are rides that are suitable for young children, such as the Skyrider, and there also bigger, faster rides for the more daring.

There’s an enjoyable live-action show, ‘The Secret of the Scorpion Palace‘, very ‘Boy’s Own Adventure’ stuff, full of stereotypes such as ‘the evil sultan’ and ‘evil henchmen’ (although some of the henchmen were actually henchwomen - so I suppose we should say ‘henchpersons’ in these politically correct times). One of the henchpersons came through the audience, who were sizzling in the very un-British heat, and talked to the kids, pushing their hats off and so on. She wound Ethan up and knocked his cap off.

We all enjoyed the 4-D Theatre of the Imagination - basically 3-D cinema (we were handed polarizing specs so that we could see the film in 3-D) with strobe lights, CO2 smoke, splashes of water and other effects. All the characters were made of Lego and the film was dubbed in a kind of non-language that could have been English or Danish or a mixture. One could understand the tone of voice that the characters were using, but there were no real words. Not that it mattered, the story was simple and the 3-D animation was the thing.

There’s a train ride called the ‘Orient Expedition’. We were bowling happily along, enjoying the sunshine and the Lego scenery, when suddenly we heard screaming and laughter from the carriages in front of ours. Not long before we found out why. The train was being liberally sprayed with water by some of the Lego animals at the trackside. Later Alex and I found some buttons on the fence posts beside the path running above the track. Pushing the buttons started the water spraying over the track. So, we waited and as the next train came past, Alex pushed one of the buttons, some little boys pushed the buttons on neighbouring posts. The engine driver got the first spraying and slowed the train. Carriage by carriage the passengers felt the water and started to scream and laugh and duck down to avoid getting any wetter. And I don’t suppose any of them realized who was causing them to get wet. Such power! But all good fun, and we all dried off quickly in the warm sun.

Ethan and Emily finished the day at Waterworks, the Legoland water-play area. It was the noisiest area in the park, filled with the high-pitched shrieks of excitement and laughter that young children emit when they’re enoying themselves with water. Most of the children were in their bathing gear, but there were a couple of Muslim girls fully dressed in shalwar kameeze and hejab who were also getting themselves soaked and having a great time. Their mum didn’t seem to mind at all!

All in all pretty good for a UK theme park - never completely up to Disney standards, but the kids (and the adults) enjoyed it. A warning: food and drink inside the park cost arms and legs. We took a picnic and bottles of water to try to keep the costs down.

Enjoy my photos of the day on Flickr.

Technorati Tags: family, grandchildren, Legoland, theme park