Legoland and Latkes

My (admittedly stupid) decision to go to the Natural History Museum over half term has, quite rightly, been castigated.  In my defence, I had never before actually ventured outside of the house over half term, except to scurry up to Tescos for  jelly-snakes, yoghurts and Kettle Chips (my holiday diet of choice), and so had NO CLUE about the horrors that lurk outside during non-schooldays.  It goes without saying that we will be spending all of July and August skulking about in the attic eaves, in our pyjamas. 

At the opposite end of the lunacy-outing scale, however, was a trip I made with the Girl and Boy last week. I was due to meet my brain twin, all the way from Australia, with her brood – a brood I have never met, nor she mine.  After 8 years of ignoring the fact that we were grown-ups with responsibilities – namely, children -  we decided to face it HEAD ON.  And where better to see each other in our unnatural parenting roles than the unnatural parenting habitat that is Legoland...

Legoland, for the uninitiated, is the UK’s equivalent to Disneyworld  (if Disneyworld was on the front lawn of the White House*, built out of Lego pieces, and full of toddlers vomiting down their fronts).  It is rivalled only by Ikea for its contribution to marital demise, and is, by all accounts, Hades’ UK residence on weekends and bank holidays.  Thus, I cleverly opted to go without the Man, and mid-week.  I also went armed with a parent and toddler voucher, because as everyone knows, the large corporates don’t just want to provide a day of fun and educational activities for you and your little ones,  they have their overheads too.  Clearly very very large overheads.

So anyway, off we set on a Tuesday morning.  If Carlsberg made family days out, this is what they would be like.  There was no traffic. We didn’t get lost.  The sun shone. No one pissed, puked or shat in the car.  We parked in an empty parking lot, right beside the entrance.  We queued for several seconds, then the man at the gate charged me £24 for the three of us – which is ludicrously cheap, notwithstanding the voucher – and in we went.  We had happy reunions, the children didn’t embarrass me too much, we went on every ride we wanted to, and didn’t queue for more than 5 - 3? – minutes for any of them.  

To give you an idea of just how empty the park was (not to mention my total gormlessness): one attraction was a type of Indiana Jones / Egyptian tomb type-thing.  In we went, not knowing what to expect.  It was dark.  I warned the kids that it might be scary.  We walked through a small, dimly-lit room, into a very very large dimly-lit room, which was filled with a wooden maze-type structure.  The room was empty, so we zig-zagged our way through, which took a few minutes.  We came to another room, and then an open-air area.  A man was sitting there.  “Was that it?” I asked him, slightly annoyed.  “Because if it was, it was really crap.” He looked at me as if I was a moron before saying, with a jerk of his head: “No, that was just the queuing area. The ride is through there...”  A solitary admissions woman sat at a booth ahead of us, picking at her nails.  It was the Marie Celeste of theme parks.

Apart from being reunited with the always-brilliant Claire, the highlight was the car journey home.  Firstly, the Boy, true to form, announced his need to pee as soon as we had turned onto the motorway. I handed him an empty water bottle and said “Use this.  Just stick your willy in the top, MAKE SURE IT’S ALL THE WAY IN, and wee.  DON’T TAKE IT OUT UNTIL YOU STOP.”  Ten-second silence.  Then:  “You’re joking, right?”  I wasn’t, but I pretended I was. 

Meanwhile, in her seat, the Girl was puffing and panting and making made all manner of strange noises.  “What are you doing?” I asked.  “I’m... hav-ing...a... bay..beeee” she grunted.  “Get...the...doc...tor...”  I glanced around and she had stuck her stuffed lion down her top and was slowly, excruciatingly, pulling him out.  Then:  “My son!”  followed by “Mama! Mama!!”  And a whole hilarious dialogue ensued between postpartum toddler and grubby fluffy toy.   It was brilliant, if slightly unnerving and bonkers. In fact, someone somewhere should devise a park-ride based on it.

For what it’s worth, here are my Legoland Top Tips (although in fairness I doubt I have had a particularly realistic perspective of the place)

• Don’t go at weekends or on holidays.
• Or if it’s raining.  Or windy.  Or cold.  (Yes, given that it’s Legoland UK, that is narrowing your opportunities somewhat.)
• If it’s busy when you go, the priority parking area - £8 – is close to the entrance, and well worth the extra fiver for not having to schlep with your toddlers across fields etc.
• Bring your own food. Especially if you don’t eat meat (or if a hunk of over-priced processed crap doesn’t entirely appeal).
• Bring enough food.  By which I mean twice as much as you think you need.
• Bring a pram.  Even if your kids are too old for one.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of shit you’ll end up carrying.
• Towels and swimmies for each child (or “swimmers” as Claire calls them;  where I come from, swimmers are something else entirely, and to be avoided at all costs.)
• The place is tiny.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s huge and that it’ll take you all day to walk around.  Tiny.  Like a bonsai Disneyland. So don’t panic; you’ll get it all covered.
• Unless you spend two hours in the Splash area, and another one in the Duplo play park.  Both of which are perfect for weary grown-ups to kick back and pretend to be watching your off-spring. 
• Some things just aren’t worth queuing for.  In fact, truth be told, very little is worth a queue of more than ten minutes. A kidney perhaps.  Free booze.  Leonard Cohen. Certainly not a crappy roller-coaster thingy which is over in a couple of minutes.  Head down to the playground area instead – it’s brilliant.  And self-enclosed, so you can do more of that pretend to be watching thing.
• When you get home, with a newly laboured 2 year-old, and a bursting at the bladder-seams 4 year old, way way past dinner-time, make these:

 

I’m not sure what they’re called - latkes I think? - but they’re the tastiest, easiest things I think I’ve ever made.  

You need:  for two:

• One large potato (peeled or not, up to you)
• One egg
• Salt
• Splash of oil

Break the egg into a mixing bowl and fluff it up a bit with a fork.

Grate the potato into it, add a large pinch of salt, then mush it all together with your hands. 

Heat a slash of oil in a frying pan.  Add the potato mixture in two dollops, pressing down to make round burger-shaped patties.

Turn the heat to medium-low, and cook on one side for about 5 minutes – until it has started to go brown.  Flip over and cook for as long as you can on the other side, again until it turns brown. 

Remove from the pan, blot off any excess oil with kitchen paper, then serve to happy, exhausted toddlers with hummus or ketchup something nutritious on the side.   

(*Legoland is a stone’s throw from Windsor Castle, the Queen’s “country” retreat.  In fact it’s just down the motorway from Buckingham Palace, and surrounded by expensive townhouses and streets with fascistic parking regulations, so hardly countryside really.  It’s fucking HUGE - a thousand rooms or some such nonsense.  If you have no patience for such things, stand outside at 11am and watch the changing of the guards, which is wonderful.  Even to a cycnical nationalistic Paddy like me.)