On our way south
We travelled south on Monday morning, prepared for the “experience” that is the M6. We were not heading home to Gloucestershire, however, for there was another adventure in the pipeline. We’d planned our route thinking that we would find somewhere interesting to break our journey, initially working on the idea of Windsor Castle where perhaps we would visit St Georges Chapel and the grave of HMQ. Our plans came to nought however, upon discovering that Windsor Castle would close early that day: It was HMK’s birthday and presumably there were preparations to be made for a party.
Instead, we looked out our tickets for Bletchley Park. Since they’re valid for a year and Bletchley was on our route, it was a great place to make a short break and stretch our legs. There’s always something new and interesting here.
Since we’d been here relatively recently, we decided to focus on the part of the park which we’ve always left till last; the building where we’ve been tired and perhaps skipped through more quickly as a result.
There’s a short film and an exhibition about D Day here too, which my Hero hadn’t seen before. As soon as we arrived, we noted that Monday lunchtime is a good time to visit places like this. Whilst we didn’t have the place to ourselves, it was incredibly quiet.
…and then the school parties came over the hill! Actually, we were glad to see them here, believing it to be important that youngsters get to see first hand how important the work done here was and how so many people played a role in the outcome of events. A few words on the wall in the exhibition about D Day emphasised the importance of intelligence on that day.
The building focuses on the people who worked at Bletchley Park and the wide range of jobs they did.
Individual, personal stories are told throughout the exhibition, attributing them to particular people many of whom never spoke of their role in the intelligence service, not even long after the war had ended.
I rather liked Half Pint and know for a fact that he would not have shared any secrets with which he had been trusted.
A short break was really all we had time for, because we had further to drive and a few logistical details to sort out. Over the last few days we’d talked about the best way to manage arrangements for the next stage of our travels and had come up with a plan: check into the Sofitel at Heathrow T5, parking the car in their car park for an hour or so whilst we shower, change and do a bit of a luggage shimmy.
Having put our weekend things into a bag to leave in the car, we sorted out everything else for our next trip into carry on bags and check in cases, double checking that we didn’t leave the wrong bag in the car and take our weekend stuff with us. Most importantly, we focused on making sure that we had passports and travel documents in our carry on bag. We didn’t want a crisis! Having completed the luggage challenge. showered and changed ready for the morning, we took our car to the Valet parking, checked in for our flight and went in search of something to eat.
Phew! So far, so good.
