The Solar System

We've all been pretty tired this week, so we thought we'd deal with our lack of energy and avoid lurking irritably in the house by going on a bike ride with Mikey. We got to use our new toy:





I won't bore you with details, but needless to say, we spent many happy hours comparison shopping and admiring different models and we are confident that this one has just enough, but not too many gimmicks.

One of it's good points is that there is plenty of luggage space.



We set off down the track to the solar system, but almost came to blows with Nathaniel immediately as he realised that this was also the way to the sailing club. We didn't have the keys and weren't planning to go in, but try telling him that! Then he remembered that this route also took in the "big bumps" - a set of lumps for skateboarding over. Last week we extracted great shrieks of excitement and exclamations of "I like this!!" as Ian cycled him up and down while he bounced in his bike seat. How would the trailer cope?

Very well:


Then on to the planets. We again got a very careful look and several minutes of thoughtful silence as Nathaniel's brain tried to cope with our explanation that this bit of metal was a model of the earth, and the one next to it a model of the moon. But then he just reverted to excitement about each new planet.



He decided that it was important to hug each planet. "I a planet hugger!"






He was very interested by the relative sizes of each planet (or dwarf planet - this solar system is a bit out of date). He concentrated carefully as we all had long conversations about the interesting aspects of Pluto and Charon. Not many people can be as interested as we are about massive bodies orbitting their common centre of mass!



We returned via a pint in a pub garden, and Nathaniel convinced Mikey ("You my friend!") to push him for ages on the swing!


I'm a bit tired now after a cycle of 9.1 x 10^9 miles!