Compasses

Today, Daddy and I played a new game with Thomas and his friends---navigation. First, Daddy showed me how to make something called a compass using a magnet, a sewing needle, and a small piece of cork. It was very surprising how the needle kept pointing in the same direction. Next, Daddy got out his real compass, and we used it to figure out the navigation of the Thomas guys. First, Bulstrode the barge mounted the compass in the bow of the barge and managed to navigate in all sorts of directions. My favorite direction is west. Next, we got out the engines and tried to determine the headings of the various tracks that are laid out. The engine would drive a little way then stop. We would then take a compass reading and the navigator (me) would tell the engine what its heading was. While initially, we confined ourselves to north, south, east, or west, after a time we adopted more sophisticated directionsw such as northwest and southwest. Daddy even suggested that there were directions like south by southwest that further distnguished our headings. I like compasses a lot.