A few of us had
arranged to meet up at the Falkirk Wheel on an 'if it's good
enough weather, go by bike – if not, go by car' basis. I got up at
07:00 and it was fairly cold outside, cold enough for parked cars to
have frost on their windows. I did a few things then noticed that not
only was the house a bit cold, but there was no hot water. I checked
to see if the gas boiler's flame had gone out (this has happened when
it's been very windy), and found water on the floor of the boiler
cupboard. It appeared to be dripping out of the boiler itself, so I
had a mad search to see if it was possible to turn the water supply
off to the boiler without having to turn it off to the whole house.
Luckily it is, so it was turned off, electricity disconnected, and
the water mopped up. Guess who'll be phoning Scottish Gas tomorrow!
I went out to the
garage and this is what I saw on the temperature display on the white
Traveller.
I got the bike out and
went for petrol. It wasn't too bad, and by 11:00 it got up to a
reasonable 7 degrees. Warm clothes on and met with my friend David
for the ride to Falkirk. It's about 35 miles (56 km), almost entirely
on motorway, so wasn't too bad. It was a bit drizzly and spray from
other vehicles was annoying, but the traffic was very light and we
were there in about 40 minutes, and ready for a nice, warm cup of
coffee.
My Traveller, and David with his BMW
Stuart was already
there, (he had thought we were meeting at 11:00 rather than 12:00),
so we sat and had a chat whilst waiting for the others to turn up.
The café
has a sloping glass side which allows good views of the Wheel when it
is rotating. Even though it was a miserable day, they were enough
people going on the boats to make this a regular occurrence.
The
others soon turned up and we spent a good afternoon chatting about
bikes, trips past and future, etc., etc. Turned out that David and I
were the only two to come on our bikes, the others chose their cars.
(l to r: Stuart, Gareth, mr.combo, David, Bill, Donnie and Kawa)
David
and I headed back home and the weather was a bit wetter than on the
way over. Not 'proper' rain, but that annoying drizzle that means you
have to keep wiping your visor. Again the traffic was fairly light,
so we made good progress.
A
good start to the year, and hopefully the first of many trips and
meetings.
The
Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift that moves boats between two
canals of differing heights. Here's some video explaining it:
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