The meaning of life
(#21) 📍 Legoland Windsor // on growing up
When I was six or seven, I started to ask myself questions like: what is the meaning of life? Why do I get up in the morning? After giving the matter some thought, I decided that the answer was going to Legoland.
I had so many fond memories of that place: the smell of Cinnabon buns wafting out across the lake; a secret hideaway called ‘The Adventurers’ Club’; the walk up the hill at the end of the day, past Lego models of a clown and some singing moai. I used to visit Legoland in my dreams. I would start at the top of the hill and work my way down through Miniland, then wait in the queue for the rides, waking up just as it was time to get on.
In spite of this, I had not visited Legoland for several years. The last time I went, I was perhaps ten. We had only managed to make it onto five rides all day, and spent an hour getting out of the car park in the evening.
“Never again,” my dad said on the way back, in the tones of someone who has lived through several world wars. I would be twenty-five when I returned.
I went back to Legoland with my friend Anna. We both had irregular working hours and could take advantage of the discounted Tuesday tickets. Like me, she had fond memories of this mystical place.
We travelled to Windsor under an overcast sky which broke sporadically into rain. On entering the park, we rushed straight to our old favourite rides: the pirate-themed log flume, the dragon-shaped rollercoaster in the big Lego castle. They were as fun as we remembered, although we were bigger now and could see things that had once been invisible to our childlike eyes: peeling paint, wire fences, the creaking mechanics behind the attractions.
Pretty much everything else we’d once loved had disappeared: the Jungle Coaster, the dinosaur-themed land, the Robin Hood-inspired play area. They seemed to have been replaced by rides that span or forced you to stare at blurry screens, or involved complicated and unreliable technology.
I had remembered the food at Legoland being quite good - there was a restaurant I’d liked which had served pizza and pasta, and my dad had been a big fan of the spare rib place next to the pirate ride - but now the restaurants only seemed to offer junk food. Anna and I bought hotdogs from a kiosk by the lake. They came in a paper bag which the attendant heated up in a microwave.
After lunch, we walked around the lake. The Jungle Coaster had been replaced by a couple of hotels arrayed around a boardwalk. I couldn’t see how there was enough to do here to warrant an overnight stay.
At the verge of the boardwalk, almost hidden by a thicket of trees, were the giant Lego models of the dinosaurs we used to love so much.
As the afternoon wore on, the rain grew more intense and harder to ignore. We wandered around Miniland, the giant model village made of Lego, a classic activity for the end of the day.
As we admired a Lego boat chugging along a miniature canal, I said, “I think this is the best thing we’ve done all day.” It made me feel so old. That was what my parents used to say.
In order to kid ourselves that we were still young at heart, we decided to go on a few more rides. It was only about 3pm; we couldn’t give up and go home just yet. So we got on a wave swinger ride which span round and round. I sat on the seat, designed for small children, and the safety bar thumped me in the back. My stomach was pressed up against the bar in front and I could feel the hotdog lurching uncomfortably.
After that, we went on a rollercoaster that travelled both backwards and forwards, and that was what finished me off. I felt too sick to contemplate anything other than going home. I went into the gift shop to buy a nostalgic present for my brother, and that made me feel even worse. The lights were too bright, the screaming kids too noisy. I was sweating hot and cold.
I felt like everything had been dumbed down since I was a child. All the rides were now branded to tie in with a Lego product that kids could buy in the gift shop. The park no longer had a Viking-themed land for the fun of it.
But also - I was just older. I couldn’t expect Legoland to give me the same high anymore. At some point in the fifteen years since I’d been there last, my life had (thankfully) taken on a new meaning.
Anna and I made it back to the car. She said what we were both thinking. “I might take my kids there…but I, personally, feel no need to go back ever again.”
On the way home, we made a detour to a random Costa in the hope of finding a hot drink that would settle my stomach. The rain was pouring down outside. As I sat drinking peppermint tea in a chain coffee shop in Dedworth, a random suburb of Windsor, I felt bizarrely happy. I loved places like this: the anonymity of them, the strange element of chance that brought you there and would soon lead you away. I had never planned to visit Dedworth and would probably never go back there again. It was just a random place with a depressing name, where ordinary life happened.
On the way home, the satnav took us through Epping and the Essex countryside, past flat yellow-green fields with blasted trees standing lonely in the middle. Anna and I listened to the recording of a church musical we’d both performed in as teenagers. We sang along and cried with laughter. It was the best part of the day.
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