Wherz the wheel?

We had a good family day yesterday. The morning was a lazy one, the boys having breakfast upstairs, enjoying the novelty of cramming round the console unit in Rowan and Angus's room to sit and eat their porridge and bagels, before spending the rest of the time playing on their iPods and DS and watching telly. Sharon slept on while I caught up on recorded sport on the TV, a favourite Sunday morning pastime of mine.

We finally got our act together and prepared a picnic before bundling the boys into the car and heading to Falkirk, to the Falkirk Wheel. Sharon and I were last there the weekend it opened, when Sean was just a few months old. The incident we most remember from that day was as we were making our way back to the car, having had to park some distance from the Wheel itself due to the crowds. A car parked and as we were passing it the door opened. A man was in the process of emerging from the vehicle. Without pause, as he rose, and with manners non-existent, he barked in a typically no nonsense Glasgow accent "Wherzthewheel!?" Taken aback, once we had played back and slowed down his grunted enquiry, Sharon and I managed to point back along the way we had just come. To speak in response would have been superfluous. Ever since, the mention of Falkirk is usually enough to provoke a "wherzthewheel?" from one of us.

Despite it being one of the warmest Februarys that I can recall, we picked a cold afternoon to pitch up for a picnic. Credit to the boys, they saw it through, tucking into their soup and sandwiches and other titbits by the pond beneath the great inverted S-shape of the wheel. There was no turning of the wheel however, so the boys didn;t get to see it in action. They had a good time in the gift shop, heating up, then we went over to the play area where Angus showed he's left babyhood far behind. He's very much one of four boys now and clambered to the top of the highest tunnel slide and piled down it with no fear, just a big red happy face. We had a good time in the water park which was closed for the winter but the boys still climbed about the various features and worked out what they all did.

Finally we headed for home with some tired boys, but the pork shoulder that had been cooking in the oven while we were out soon revived them and there was more sweaty dancing before baths and bed.

On Saturday the Cairns came over for a visit. I took Sean and Finn into Bruntsfield Links to practice our chipping and putting. The course isn't laid out just now but we made do by placing a stick on each green and aiming for that. Finn managed two of the holes in two shots, with some very good chips. Sean needs to work on his swing a little but had one or two good hits too. Afterwards we went across to Thai Lemongrass for a very tasty Saturday lunch! Chicken satay, noodles with seafood and a green pork curry for me. Spot on!