and back again

May 2011 pre-dates any sort of concerted effort of phones to track us at all times, so I dont have a record of the route I used to cycle out here the last time we were here for the big one's first birthday. In the end I went with the canal on the way out for simplicity, arriving a few minutes before the car containing the children and their grandparents. I was the only user of the two bike racks, which are not bolted down but which I could lock together with my D-lock to hopefully create something too unwieldy to easily lift away. The children seemed reasonably impressed, though a slightly cooler day with slightly more food slightly earlier would work better next time. There was only a couple of miles of relatively quiet and flat B-road between the nearest canal access point and the entrance, but whilst the canal has been gradually improved in chunks here and there (particularly the bit between the A720 aqueduct and Ratho) there are still a few bits which would be quite wearing on the arms and backs of those unused to it, or not prepared to accept it as being a lot better than it was. Previously when I've gone any distance along the canal it usually gets to the point where I would promise myself to escape at the next available point when the surface suddenly improved, so I would stay on it on the way out but go another way on the way back. Once I somehow ended up amidst the Pedal for Scotland after escaping the surface at Winchburgh but even that was slightly preferable as long as the road was smooth.