Banks and Bletchley Park

The saga of the bank was dominating my thoughts this morning. Fortunately I had arranged with Jo last night to come over today and see if I could get things sorted. As mentioned in the last post her place was only 38 minutes away and when I woke up this morning the sun was shining brightly. So I actually had a most delightful drive through the Leicestershire countryside to get to Jo's place in Whissendine.

So I got into her secure internet and changed my Uk sim for my Australian sim but alas and alack, nothing worked and I even discovered they had removed my operating account from my Netbanks page. So there was nothing for it but to ring them up.

The Commonwealth Bank had actually sent me an email yesterday with a number to ring that would accept reverse charges... Two little problems - it had to be from a landline and it  actually didn't work.
When I went through the process and rang that number they said that number doesn't accept this kind of call. Fortunately Jo still had a landline, but how many people these days only have mobiles.

Anyway, I looked at my eftpos card and it had a reverse charge number on it so I tried that and after a bit of mucking around I got through and sorted everything out. But how typical of banks that they send you a number to ring and it didn't work! I hate banks!!!!

So at least I have access to my money. I actually had gone on to both the Westpac and CBA websites before I left, and had entered all my details on the Westpac site, but I could not find that part on the CBA site - in fact I thought it said I didn't need to leave details.... Aaaaaaah well, you live and learn. I suppose I should be glad they at least have their eye on my transactions...!

Jo and me

Jo's house

Anyway, moving right along....

Perhaps it was a fortunate thing that I had to go to Jo's place - oh happy fault as they say at Easter - because it made me change my plans for the day. Originally I had thought I would go over to Norwich, because I was interested in Julian of Norwich and her little hermitage she had built where she bricked herself in for the rest of her life.... I had studied her writings at Clayton in Melbourne with Austin Cooper back in the day when I was studying Theology.

Anyway, that was in the opposite direction, so I was just cruising around in Google Maps last night looking for somewhere within cooee of Jo's place and  my eyes spotted Bletchley Park - home of the famous Enigma Machine that cracked the code in WW2.  I had sort of factored that in as I was originally travelling North, but it went into the too hard basket as I tried to squeeze too much in in those early days.

But it was only one and a half hours from Whissendine, so that became my destination. And I was soooo glad i went - especially on Anzac Day, when I was exposed to so much WW2 history.

Bletchley Park Mansion

At the front door of the mansion.

Once again we were provided with an audio guide and it was wonderfully informative.

I'm sure many of you are aware of the story of Bletchley Park and the role it played in WW2.
In case you would like to know more you can view the Wikipedia  site
Or you may remember the film The Imitation Game

But the real thing was just excellent.

Here are some views of Bletchley Park

Alistair Dennison's Office - He was the boss

They said this place shortened WW2 by at least 2 years.

The library

The huts where the people worked were fascinating. Apparently they used to work really long shifts, in fact they had a UV machine for those you were not seeing any sunlight.
The huts were OK in summer but were full of cigarette smoke and in the winter the coal fires would often smoke the place out, so they had to open the windows and meanwhile the occupants were freezing...

View of huts

Here are some views inside the huts...

Inside the huts

Inside the huts

Hut 8 was especially interesting as this was the hut where Alan Turing worked...

Info about Hut 8

Info about Alan Turing

Alan Turing's Office

Alan Turing's Statue

I stayed for a little explanation of the Bombe machine which was the one which was programmed to crack the code, but it was all a bit much for my poor brain. here's a short video of it in action

By this time, it was after 3.30pm and I knew I had a decent drive home. And bad weather had been forecast, so I was a bit wary of the drive....

And sure enough,,,, I was just negotiating my way out of all those roundabouts  around Bletchley and the heavens opened... not just a little rain storm, but thunder and lightning right above me and buckets of hail. It was almost like a farewell to me, as I give back the car tomorrow. I took the wrong turn off multiple times, then when I found the right road it was closed and had a diversion.... I'm not sure how I actually made it on to the M1 North, but I think it must've been the grace of God...

I was so glad when I made it safely home, I headed straight for the Harvest restaurant next door and treated myself to a beer and read all my emails. Thanks so much to those who are sending through emails and messages and comments... I really love that contact with home, especially after a day battling with the UK traffic.

So, I can't believe the first stage of my journey is nearly over. I've been in UK just on 3 weeks and it's gone so quickly. But when I read back over my blog, I have travelled so far and achieved so much.
Tomorrow I drop my car off at Stansted Airport and catch the train into London where I'm staying for 2 nights, before catching the Chunnel train to Brussels.

Thanks for hanging in with me on the journey. I never feel really alone because so many people are travelling with me.