Day out with my parents
My parents came to stay this weekend, and on Saturday evening we went to hear Iain Banks speak as part of the Linlithgow Book Festival. (Iain Banks is the author of the Wasp Factory, the Crow Road, Whit, and others.)
We nearly had an embarrassing disaster. My mother, bless her, got it into her head that we were going to hear Ian Rankin speak, another Scottish author who writes the Rebus detective series. She has read a number of Ian Rankin books, and was spouting off about how she had heard him on the radio recently. It was only on the way to the venue that I discovered my Mother's mix up with the Ian/Iains. She was planning to ask Iain Banks about the eventual fate of Rankins's aging policeman hero - Thank God we put her right before she piped up in front of a hall full of people. I might have had to disown her.
Yesterday we went on a little trip to see the Falkirk wheel. Under normal circumstances I suspect this could be a nice day out. As it was the wheel was broken and was standing motionless in the drizzle.
'Never mind' we cried in our optimistic way, 'let's go and look at the exhibition!' The centre piece of the exhibition was a working scale model of the wheel. 'The next best thing to seeing the actual thing', we thought. Unfortunately this was also broken, and was standing motionless in a smudgy glass case.
'Oh well' we said, optimism wavering, 'lets have a look at the displays' The very expensive looking interactive displays were broken. Luckily the coffee machine in the cafe was working and we had a nice drink, walked around the wheel in the drizzle and went home for a nap.
We nearly had an embarrassing disaster. My mother, bless her, got it into her head that we were going to hear Ian Rankin speak, another Scottish author who writes the Rebus detective series. She has read a number of Ian Rankin books, and was spouting off about how she had heard him on the radio recently. It was only on the way to the venue that I discovered my Mother's mix up with the Ian/Iains. She was planning to ask Iain Banks about the eventual fate of Rankins's aging policeman hero - Thank God we put her right before she piped up in front of a hall full of people. I might have had to disown her.
Yesterday we went on a little trip to see the Falkirk wheel. Under normal circumstances I suspect this could be a nice day out. As it was the wheel was broken and was standing motionless in the drizzle.
'Never mind' we cried in our optimistic way, 'let's go and look at the exhibition!' The centre piece of the exhibition was a working scale model of the wheel. 'The next best thing to seeing the actual thing', we thought. Unfortunately this was also broken, and was standing motionless in a smudgy glass case.
'Oh well' we said, optimism wavering, 'lets have a look at the displays' The very expensive looking interactive displays were broken. Luckily the coffee machine in the cafe was working and we had a nice drink, walked around the wheel in the drizzle and went home for a nap.
posted by Rach at 11:53
3 Comments:
Oh dear. You missed the real Falkirk experience. I, too, have been to see the wheel standing motionless in the rain. But what you seem to have missed is the souped-up car rally that takes place in the visitors car park of the wheel at night. The Falkirk Massive turn out in their fully loaded novas and pimped up pandas. Now that's culture.
Oh, and according to one of the Scots I was there with, "Get to Falkirk" is another way of saying "F*** off"
That is a shame as it is quite a sight when rotating.
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