Hogwarts Castle

J follows the instructions

Just recently J has discovered the world of Harry Potter and friends; it started with a Lego Wii game and progressed to the first film, then the second and finally a reading of the first book in small stages when J could be persuaded to sit down. So I was not surprised when the more recent Lego requests became less for Star Wars and more for Harry Potter and even less surprised when the kits J was eyeing were in the £70 - £100 mark. This was a difficult issue for J as he does not have a birthday mid-year but 5 days before Christmas, therefore asking him to “put it on your birthday/Xmas list” seemed a tad cruel.

So – what to do? J’s Dad hit on the idea of asking J to achieve something which he finds difficult I will spare J’s blushes here but sufficient is it to say that it involved the bathroom! Once the task set had been achieved 30 times then Dad would buy J the Lego Hogwarts Castle retailing at the time for £102 :-O. J had the ultimate control over when this was achieved and could achieve 7 times a week of 3 times a fortnight – it was up to him but he quickly cottoned on to the fact that results meant stars on a chart and that stars on a chart meant Lego once sufficient had been achieved.

So fast forward to last week when the Lego arrived, J had achieved his goal some time previously and was eagerly awaiting the parcel from his Dad. It arrived – a massive box of Lego with 10 bags for construction and a three large construction books. My heart sank from experience of hours with Star Wars Lego space ships lovingly built and broken into loads of pieces rapidly so that J’s own designs could be built. I wondered how long it would take but was pleasantly surprised when it became apparent that Bag 1 constructed all the figures and beginnings of the castle meaning that the Lego could be played with immediately rather than waiting for all to be finished. My second nice surprise was how easily J followed the instructions to the set - it was lovely. He had constant supervision, but largely built the castle himself with just occasional guidance from me.

The castle took us 3 days on and off to build but once done it was beautiful – pictures do not really do the detail in it justice.

"Stained glass" windows



 J peeking through the finished castle with pride.



The "almost finished" castle.