The school holidays have begun, and while Monday was taken up with the usual routine of jobs, food shopping and jumping into our very own pool, I was off work on Tuesday to provide care, education and entertainment to Holly in the absence of Mr Hilton. I thought a proper day out would be nice (we'd been at home on Sunday and Monday and I - never mind Holly and Louis - was going a bit stir-crazy) so we came up with a few options and ended up visiting the Falkirk Wheel. It seemed a shame for Louis to miss out, so he came along too. We took a boat ride up the lift, along the aqueduct and through the Roughcastle tunnel (a journey of about 400m) and back again. It was all very entertaining and educational. They also have a new water park where you can play with locks, pumps, screws and paddle wheels. We had a great time there, with Louis inevitably gravitating towards the bike-powered pump, even though it wasn't working. Revelation of the day (for me at least) was the notion that the two "gondolas" on the wheel are *always* in balance - any vessels in the water displace *exactly* their own weight in water so the total weight remains the same. Pure genius, thanks to Archimedes over 2000 years ago. I explained this to Holly and Louis, they wondered whether he invented ice cream too...
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