Random Saturday - To brick or not to brick

Lego was the topic of another random Saturday seven years ago, but back then I only spoke about and showed my London bus.

You've also seen a picture of my Lego Snowglobe as part of my hallway Christmas decoration.

There's more. Not much. Lego is and always has been very much a matter of money and space both of which I prefer to spend on other things, no matter how tempting some of the projects may look like (I'm just saying cat).
There are stories, however. Of course there are, after all this is random Saturday. Old ones, new ones.

I couldn't tell you the exact age at which I got my first Legos. Back then, all of us siblings got one basic set which consisted of one baseplate - still the thicker ones then - and a bunch of bricks. We threw everything together in order to have more options for bigger projects. Basic set also meant basic bricks which we named after the number of bumps on each one (no idea if that was some official naming, but we added the Swabian diminutive -le to the numbers, so maybe not).
What I remember best was building tiny house models with limited wall height and no roof, tiny because the baseplates were small and because we didn't have that many bricks. Also no roof meant we could play in them by using the smallest bricks for the people living in the house.

Years later, my little brother had five boxes (four of them had been a lottery prize, size A to D) of Märklin's (the company is known among model train collectors and is located in my town) own brick version - the so-called Minex bricks (Märklin used the name Minex for several products, also metal construction sets or trains). You could do a lot with five boxes and the bricks were much easier to take apart which could be both an advantage and a disadvantage, but I remember having a lot of fun with those.

Afterwards, bricking (as I've heard it being called in Germany) wasn't really a topic for me anymore for many years - until one year my pal gave me the Yellow Submarine from the Beatles movie to cheer me up in a weltschmerz phase.
We spent a few evenings both working on our projects, having something to eat and drink, laughing a lot, always under the strict supervision of Ponder.
It was a lot of fun although it's amazing how many mistakes you can make on a piece that doesn't even look that difficult on the outside.

For my next birthday, he gave me the London Bus.
That really brought back memories of my first London visit (unfortunately there were only two) together with a friend and her five year old daughter. On the first day, we did bus hopping, randomly changing buses seeing where they would take us.

Again we started to work on our projects together, but then life happened and we finished them on our own. That's when I found that I wasn't made to be a lonely bricker. I gave up eventually and had to motivate myself hard to finally pick it up again. That's why it took me five months to get it finished! It's so cool.

Two more projects we did together again was the living room from The Big Bang Theory and the Santa Snowglobe (the weirdest snowglobe ever) which had been an extra gift with an order.

There's one more piece that has been waiting for me to work on it. It has been around for several years and I think it's really time to get started on it - the Lego Art set "The Beatles". With the box content you can make one of the four portraits and my first problem was to decide which one to make because, let's get this clear, if I make one I'm not going to rip it out again to make a different one.
To be honest, I wish the portraits were old black and white ones, but that can't be helped, can it?

Once I decide, I might turn this project into small WIP posts to motivate myself, so I won't give it up.
Which portrait would you choose IF you like The Beatles at all?

I am not affiliated with Lego in any way, except playing with it every, now and then.

Nostalgia - Happy Birthday, Beatrix Potter!

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

1988, London.
Two young women and a five year old girl on a one week vacation - we had a wonderful time (if you don't count in the terrible hotel room, but we used to be a lot more tolerant at that age and the partial refund helped as well) and I fell in love with London although I am not usually a fan of big cities.

Now what does Beatrix Potter's birthday - she was born on July 28, 1866 - have to do with our London vacation 122 years later?
Well, among trips to parks, museums, and galleries we also hit the shops of course, and I couldn't resist bringing home a little bunny for my bunny collection.

"Benjamin Bunny sat on a bank" was inspired by Potter's "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny".

This little fellow is the first version of two manufactured by Beswick, he ran from 1983 to 1985 and differs from the second version by his head posture (he's looking up) and wearing a darker brown colored jacket.
He was modelled by David Lyttleton.
(Thank you to Beatrix Potter Figurines - A Definitive Guide!)
I still think he's very cute and it's really funny to me how vividly I remember the inside of the shop where I got him and a little address book.

Every time I look at him it takes me back to this London vacation.

Now you are in for a very rare treat, a picture of me from that trip (I hate my picture being taken!).

Random Saturday - London Bus

It all started last year with a surprising gift by my pal. I had been suffering from weltschmerz and somehow he had the idea that some Legos would cheer me up - and he was right!
He got the Yellow Submarine for me and something for himself and we spent a very fun evening building together. We don't have riches to spend on Lego, but every, now and then we treated each other to a kit.

For my last birthday he gave me a red London bus. It reminded me of the first time I was in London, with a friend and her five year old daughter. The first thing we did was to get tickets for a week (which was more difficult than it sounds here) and then we hopped on a bus, got out, hopped on another bus, and so on, leaving it to chance where we would end up. It's what my friend and I had done on the subway in Berlin years ago, too.


It only took me about five months to get this finished. We started when it was very hot and I simply couldn't sit anymore, then the lower part of the model went into storage in a cupboard, but last night it came out again. Although I didn't make in one sitting (while my friend managed a whole VW bus), I just put on the last brick AND I found a place for the bus on a shelf.
Now if only the cats don't get tempted to get up there for a closer look ... Gundel had been very interested in what we did ...