Day 839: Scots steaming ahead

11/11/2023

Wednesday morning Liam was off to the airport at 04:00 for a long 16-hour day down back to Farnborough again. At a slightly more civil hour, the paint was out. With the kids working on their creative side. Lachlan enjoys mixing the colours, while Eloise takes the slower more careful approach.

During afternoon nursery, Eloise was working on counting syllables and clapping out her name, she was excited to show off when Super Mum picked her up in the evening.

Happy to be reunited after nursery, they cuddled up to stay warm while giggling and hiding from Super Mum.

Thursday Eloise was in the market for Christmas card art sets and also managed to pick up a crackin’ new Christmas sweater. Lachlan made sure that they brought their sand tools.

It might only be 6°C but the sun was shining and Eloise insisted she was warm while digging and playing on the PG.

We then rushed home so Eloise and Lachlan could make a start on their personalised Christmas cards, is it that time of the year already?

Wednesday was a great night out as more colleagues make their way back across to Adelaide, we are still working on grinding Kirrie and George down.

Liam’s brain had been completely fried on Wednesday so took Friday off which was great as he joined the Mummas and took Lachlan to gymnastics for the first time. Liam was very impressed, Lachnado is a true nut case the way he throws his body around with no fear in the world.

The other advantage of Dad taking Lachlan to gymnastics was that Eloise got to have a cute coffee date with Super Mum, she usually misses out while Dad works Friday mornings. Eloise was buzzing, it was quite foggy and only 2°C but Eloise was not missing her chance.

After a nice morning we all headed home for lunch and to fill up the car, Eloise thought it was hilarious that the car was thirsty “Dad, Dad, car said vroom vroom thirsty, the car is still thirsty Dad”.

After Eloise had caught up with all her friends at gymnastics it was time to hit the road, Lachlan had fallen asleep before we had even got across Glasgow. Eloise had a great road trip setup with snacks on demand, not her first rodeo.

We had not planned much so it was a longer trip than we had expected. It was Maccas for dinner, Eloise and Lachlan were thrilled with their Happy Meal Squishmallows who joined our weekend getaway.

Eventually, we pulled into a dark Doncaster and checked into our hotel. Eloise was glad to see there was a purple light in our room.

Saturday morning was an early start with Eloise and Lachlan screaming for their purple light. It isn’t actually as purple as the photos make it look, they were still quick to remember it.

Eloise and Lachlan were literally bouncing off the walls. We had to get out into the cool Doncaster air and find some breakfast.

With tummies warm and full it was a lovely crisp walk around Lakeside Lake, that is what it is actually called, England’s Loch Lochy. Eloise and Lachlan both thought it was hilarious when the swan was chasing us, so they had to feed it.

It took the best part of an hour to make our way around the lake, we could not have chosen better weather for it.

Sadly, Lachlan had missed out on his weekly Football Buzz so we had to let him sprint about to wear down a few of his gears for the safety of all the civilians in Doncaster.

After a lovely stroll (or run in Lachlan’s case) Super Mum’s radar was pinging as we headed to the outlet stores. Luckily there were lots for the kids to play on while Super Mum was hunting for a bargain.

By this stage, Lachnado was sprinting about terrorising the locals. Eloise was doing her usual best to chase him down and tell him off, completely confused why he would not listen to her. Thankfully they found Santa’s sleigh and some healthy Santa propaganda brought them back in line.

There was actually a reason we had made the trek down to Doncaster. We were excited as we made our way to Doncaster International Railport Terminal, the “Flying Scotsman steam locomotive has returned to the city where it was built to mark its 100th anniversary… I am delighted that thousands of visitors have got the opportunity to see Flying Scotsman for themselves this weekend, as I know how much this means to local people”. After disappointingly missing it in York earlier this year we had luckily managed to get tickets for the event a few weeks ago. It was a double special Remembrance Day event which included a poverty of Pipers.

We had got there reasonably early so the line to board the Flying Scotsman was not too long. Although Lachlan had not planned on sticking around for long and he had to find ways to entertain himself.

After an hour we finally got to board the cab of possibly the most famous train in the world, if you don’t count the Hogwarts Express.

Australia had been reunited with the Flying Scotsman again! “While in Australia in 1989 it also set a new record for the longest non-stop run by a steam locomotive at 422 miles”. We were surprised with how large it was, especially the wheelsets. Eloise and Lachlan appreciated the colour.

We were glad we had seen it, it was well worth the trip down. We had traveled the Flying Scotsman (railway service) from Edinburgh to London, with Lachlan surfing the majority of the way it would have been a real shame if we had missed seeing such an iconic piece of engineering. In fact “one of the brand new King Charles £2 coins will display the iconic Flying Scotsman steam locomotive”.

Flying Scotsman is a Pacific steam locomotive built in 1923 for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) at Doncaster Works to a design of Nigel Gresley… The locomotive set two world records for steam traction, becoming the first steam locomotive to be officially authenticated as reaching 100 miles per hour (161 km/h) on 30 November 1934, and then setting a record for the longest non-stop run by a steam locomotive when it ran 422 miles (679 km) on 8 August 1989 while in Australia. Retired from regular service in 1963 after covering 2.08 million miles, Flying Scotsman enjoyed considerable fame in preservation.

Just when the kids thought the train fun could not get any better the Disney train arrived. They went sprinting across, they are seriously going to lose their minds in Disneyland.

With half a day left and not too much else to do in Doncaster, we pushed on a bit further to see Lauren’s mates in Sheffield. Both Eloise and Lachan were still buzzing so we drove through the city to Weston Park Museum, we thought it would be the perfect place for the kids to check out.

It was a great museum with plenty of interactive displays for Eloise and Lachlan.

Attached was an art gallery that inspired Eloise to do a quick sketch.

Weston Park Museum is a museum in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It is one mile west of Sheffield city centre within Weston Park. It is Sheffield’s largest museum and is housed in a Grade II* listed building and managed by Museums Sheffield. Until 2006 it was called Sheffield City Museum and Mappin Art Gallery. The museum opened in 1875 in Weston House, whose grounds later became the park. A neoclassical extension, in the Ionic order, was added in 1887. The Mappin Art Gallery was built to house the collection of work bequeathed to the city by the Rotherham businessman John Newton Mappin. Weston Hall was demolished in the 1930s and a purpose-built structure, adjoining the Mappin Art Gallery, and funded in part by donations from local businessman J. G. Graves, was completed in 1937.

Outside the museum there were plenty of pretty autumn coloured trees to check out in Weston Park and again another perfect spot to let Lachlan blow off some steam. He was darting about with Eloise’s new birthday camera having a jolly good time taking snaps.

Meanwhile, Eloise was still in her full artistic mood opting for the slower flower hand sketch.

For dinner the boy discovered ribs. Fair enough, after all his running today. We have created a monster.