Lego

This weekend saw the inaugural Yorkshire Lego Show being held at the National Coal Mining museum in Wakefield. When my son found out about it on Saturday he decided to go in the afternoon. I don't get out much and as he was going to go alone he was quite pleased when I said I'd go with him.

We looked at the website at lunchtime to find out opening times (10.00 - 4.00) and admission prices (free) only to be faced with a message saying that they had already had to close their doors because they were just too busy to cope. Later that day people were posting on Facebook that they had arrived at 11.00 and been unable to park while others who had found parking spaces had queued for 3 hours. We decided to put off going until today.

When we arrived at 9.35 this morning the car park was already full. We found roadside parking within yards of the car park entrance and joined the end of a very long queue. By 10.10 a member of staff was working the queue - from where we were there was still a two hour wait but we could fill the intervening time by taking the hour and a half underground tour through the now closed mine and then rejoining the Lego queue at a point where there would be half an hour or less to wait. So we decided to do this.

I've been to the NCM before, about 15 years ago not long after we moved Yorkshire and it didn't really mean very much. Since then I've lived and worked amongst miners and their families and heard about their experiences underground and during the strike. Taking the tour again has given me a new perspective and a renewed respect for what these people actually went through. It was a real 'eye-opener'.

And then we got to the Lego. About a dozen exhibitors, crammed into one room and I took a whole stream of rubbish pictures. This one is the only one which isn't blurred.

It has, however, solved the problem of what my sons can buy me for Mother's Day. And my birthday. And Christmas. I am now officially Into Lego.