The annoying toddler…

10 July 2018

As anticipated, I slept terribly, keeping one eye on Cornelia in her top bunk bed, and leaping out of my bed every time she moved…which was quite a lot!

The cabin in which we stayed is literally a small shed, with a bunk bed and a single bed, and some shelves for storage. There is a wooden deck outside with a plastic table and three chairs, so we had breakfast there, before trying to pack up, made much more difficult by a pesky toddler who wanted (unsurprisingly) to play. I desperately needed to book our accommodation for the next couple of nights in an hotel near Legoland, so kept having to bat her away, much to her frustration!

There is a swimming pool here, and she had been keen to go in, but then decided she’d rather play with her ball (having been given the choice of one or the other, as we needed to check out at 11:00 and wouldn’t have time to do both).

Needless to say, as we were about to go for our showers, she had a meltdown, begging to change her mind as she really wanted to go swimming and had made a terrible mistake. Bless her! We haven’t been in many places that she can swim, and I’m keen for her to stay enthusiastic for the water, so agreed that her and I would go in the pool for 15 minutes while Daddy had his shower.

She jumped straight into the slightly chilly water and we had a marvellous time together, floating on crocodiles, surfing on float boards, and going down the water slide together. I’m so glad I took her, even though getting her out was hard. She was shivering with cold, but insisted she wanted to stay in, and had a real strop when I told her that we were, in fact, now getting out and going for our showers. I’d managed to get her swimsuit off and towel wrapped around her, before she burst into tears saying that she was cold and wanted to hold my hand.

Unfortunately, I had our shower bags and swimming stuff in both hands, as well as trying to hold onto my own towel, and she screamed horribly at me, so I walked away, leaving her rolling around naked in the grass for a couple of minutes, before she managed to sort herself out, and come running after me, with her towel thrown over her little body! I love these challenging parent moments!! 🙄

We had bought a five minute shower which I thought would be enough, but as it happened, I was wrong. We lost some time, due to a fractious toddler who got out of the shower before me (as is completely normal) but refused to wrap her towel around herself, asking me to do it. In the time it took me to get out of the shower (she was dripping all over my clothes, so it was in my best interest to help her out), and wrap her up, the shower switched off. And I was still covered in conditioner and shower gel. Argh!!!

I must confess, I got cross with her. At which point, Daddy knocked on the door and Cornelia let him in, where he found me leaning over a sink trying to rinse out my hair and wash bubbles off…!

Apology from my slightly annoying toddler given, and we were off again, via a supermarket for lunch and snacks, Legoland-bound.

We miss Norway’s extraordinary landscapes – Denmark seems dull by comparison, with its flat fields, wind and cloud – but it was nice not to be skint after a trip to the supermarket, and actually travel at a decent speed again! We spent much of our journey today at 130km/hr as opposed to 80kms/hr! What a difference it makes over a long distance!

The services we stopped at for lunch had appalling loos – the worst we’ve seen so far in our adventure (although there are doubtless worse to come!), which meant Cornelia had to do another free wee right outside the facilities, which were completely blocked and flooded the floor.

The rest of the journey whizzed by, as we listened to the last instalment of The Enchanted Forest, with a request from Bugsy for the next book to be downloaded when we were at the hotel (since done!).

We found the hotel with no problems. It is a “conference” hotel, so quite smart, although its target audience at this time of year is definitely Legoland guests!

Our Caxton credit card was annoyingly declined at check in – we are having a real problem with it since they’ve updated its range (we initially wanted a Euro credit card, but it has adapted itself to be multi-currency, which just makes it very complicated to ensure we have put enough cash on it) – and after a few attempts to load the card (it’s a pay-as-you-go kind of credit card), we gave up and used the faithful old Tesco card. Guess the charge will be fairly unpleasant!!

After a quick trip back down to reception, followed by a swift visit from a very friendly member of the housekeeping team, we were safely installed in our triple room, with air con (hurrah!). I was desperate to get out for a run, and Bugsy was keen to get on Henry (her bike), so Ian took her out while I went for a lovely early evening run.

I managed to work out a decent loop (more luck than judgement) which involved some gentle undulation as well as an unexpected trek through the woods. In “Frozen”, Olaf had his own personal snow cloud. And in Denmark, I had my own personal fly cloud. Bloody pesky buzzy little things.

When I arrived back, Cornelia was just finishing her bike ride and was very excited to tell me all about the bouncy castle she’d been on, in the grounds of the hotel, and the giant seesaw she’d been able to cycle up, over and down. I had a quick shower, which didn’t really do enough to cool me off, and still pink-faced, we went down for supper in the “all you can eat” buffet restaurant downstairs.

I have to say, it was delicious! I was quite healthy and restrained, but Ian and Bugsy made merry, finishing off with ice cream and a couple of delicious white chocolate wafers.

Bugsy was completely knackered and fell straight to sleep after her stories, which meant Ian and I had the luxury of setting up my laptop in the communal area outside the room, to watch the France-Belgium game.