It is another typical working day when away, in that I have to get up and have breakfast before checking out and after programming in the address, follow the sat nav out of the city to Munkebo where the factory was.
Munkebo is the old shipbuilding area, and they still have a dry dock there and there was a small cruise liner and a DFDS ferry in being repaired. I have four others to wait for, so after parking I wait at the main gate for them to arrive, but the calm was broken with some emergency in some other part of the port as fire engines, police cars and ambulances roar through, lights and sirens going. No idea what the emergency was mind.
The others arrive and we walk past the old assembly sheds to the offices of the factory.
And so the serious business begins.
Again, I can’t say what I saw in the factory, but the components and turbines get ever larger, and the way in which cranes and people manoeuvre them into place to build the final part. Just astonishing.
There is a pause for lunch, more of the same for a couple of hours, but by half two we were done. So we all thank each other and return to our cars to drive either back home, and for me to drive to my next hotel.
Not just any old hotel, but the Legoland Hotel in Billund, which was as cheap as any, and would allow me to have a lay in on Friday morning, seeing as there was just a ten-minute drive to the airport.
Rush hour seems to be earlier in Denmark, and driving round Odense and on through Middlefart meant stop-start on the motorway, but at least it was light. And not raining. In fact, the skies even cleared allowing some weak sunshine to see out the day.
It was a 90 minute drive to Billund, half of the way along roads I knew well, so with hours to go, I relax and just cruise along.
The hotel is just over the road from the theme park entrance, and is not built out of Lego bricks, but has lots of humourous figures made of the bricks through the building and in the bedrooms. In the lobby there were some life-sized Star Wars figures, and behind the lobby desk, a wall 30 feet long of minfigures.
As is normal, I have a huge smile on my face as I check in, and all the staff smile back.
I have a room on Pirate Street; the carpets all have a wooden floor pattern, the door has a porthole in it, and inside the room there are treasure maps, and lots of pirate-themed Lego figures; a monkey, a rat dressed as a pirate.I read for a bit, check mails, then go for an early dinner; the menu was limited, but what they did was great. I had a burger and a fine pint or two of Danish mild, which was splendid.
I read Conclave as I wait for my meal, and after it as I finish my second beer before ordering crème brulee. All was very good indeed, and I finished the book too. Meaning back in my room I do some work, listen to the radio before turning in.
As I clean my teeth, there is a Lego pirate hat behind me, and the angles make it look as though I am wearing it at a jaunty angle. I go to bed happy.
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