We have two days off a week and look forward to them, but it’s never enough because we have so much we want to do and see and also sometimes we just want to do nothing and potter about at home.

I also check the weather for our our days off which makes a decision on what we will do. With the weather looking bad for our first day off we decided to take a drive out to a national trust property called Hill House at Helensburgh.

The house was built in 1902/1904 , designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife. It’s very art nouveau inside. The outside was clad in Portland cement which was a flawed material choice so the house was crumbling away over the years with the wind and rain.

The house was donated to the national trust in 1982 and in 2019 they clad the house in a transparent chain mail and put a huge roof over the whole house. This lets the house breathe and dry out over time so they can renovate the outside.

The structure is also a good way of viewing the outside because you can walk all around it at different levels including a Birds Eye view from above it. Nikki stayed on ground level and of course I had to do the whole experience. To get photos.

With the structure surrounding the house it meant that this was a good choice of things to do on a rain forecast day. But it didn’t rain.

The inside was very art nouveau with some great features. This made a change from a lot national trust properties which are much older.

To get to the house we drove along side Loch Lomond. A very popular place for people coming to Scotland but not the best of roads for so much traffic being narrow in a lot of places. This is fine but you get a lot of hired motorhomes with people driving them who have never driven anything bigger than a car before. And then they meet a caravan or lorry coming the other way and go into panic mode.

As we drove along the edge of the loch we saw a place called Firkin Point and it just made me laugh so much. I decided that was where we’re going to have to stop on the way back. So we did. It’s a small picnic area with an old tree on the edge of the Loch and a small beach area. Some girls were swimming in the loch.

The next day I went out on my bike. I had wanted to do a big loop for ages but my fitness was not good last year so had planned to do it this year. Again my fitness is not good, it’s a bit better than last year. I didn’t plan on doing it that day because I had not been on my bike for six weeks because we were doing other stuff.

As I went off down the hill I thought I would go towards the loop and yes you guessed I ended up doing the big loop I wanted to do. 35 miles and 3195 ft of elevation. Taking in great views and three dams and a bit of Scottish traffic ( Highland cows)

The route was 95% on single track roads of which the most was a very old road which is all broken up in places so is not used, only by farmers and mad bikers.

After getting back and having some lunch I chilled for the rest of the day but felt good and then went to work the next day for a rest. Talking of work, we only have ten weeks to go before our season is over and we shut the site up. But that’s enough talk of work, let’s talk about the last two days which we had off.

Another thing on our list of things to do on our days off was to see the Kelpies and the Falkirk wheel. We didn’t get round to seeing them last year, yesterday we went out to put this right.

The Kelpies are two giant horses heads set in the Helix visitor centre. They stand 30 metres tall and are made from stainless steal. Crafted by artist Andy Scott they pay homage to the horses that once powered scotlands industry. They are very impressive. You get a glimpse of them if you’re driving up on the M9 motorway but they are worth going to see up close. I took so many photos of them but will not bore you with all of them just a couple and an arty farty shot.

A short drive from the Kelpies is the Falkirk wheel which is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde canal with the Union canal. Opened in 2002 this fantastic 1800 tonne boat lift structure rotates to transport canal boats/ barges 35 metres up or down to join the canals. To do a complete circle it uses the same power as eight domestic kettles. It didn’t say how many cups of tea that is.

To stand there and watch it revolve is amazing and they don’t spill any water. We were lucky that not many people were about.

And no the boats don’t go upside down as it turns, the designers thought of that luckily. The marina at the lower level had a couple of nice old barges on.

From the Falkirk wheel we went into Stirling to do some food shopping to include some BBQ food for today because the weather people said it was going to be nice today. They lied. The weather people are the only people that constantly get their job wrong and don’t get the sack. we will see what it’s like later but I am not holding my breath. I know the rest of the U.K. is basking in higher temperatures and we are about ten degrees cooler up here in Scotland but to be honest I am happy with that as long as it’s not raining.