Day 54 Wroxall to Winchester 9 June 2018

We leave our atmospheric hotel under grey skies again but there should be no rain. Today we visit the much anticipated Bletchley Park. One of our group, Louis is an academic originally from new Zealand had one of the people who worked at Bletchley Park 1939-45 as a professor. He dies aged 99 and 11 months in 2010. We had two hours to visit and saw where Alan Turing worked and about the technology involved. It was a rushed visit and we also rushed up to the National Museum of Computing where they had the Colossus and Bombe computing machines.  The assistant was nice enough to start the machine up early and Elizabeth was thrilled. We both took video footage which we never ever do.

Above is Alan Turing's bear but he sems to be able to keep a secret.

A parachute for a pigeon. Being thrown out of a plane, one fellow asked what effect would have had on the pigeon, his mate replied that it would have been character building.

An excited Elizabeth watching the Colossus computer coming to life. It has been rebuilt as alabour of love by enthusiasts as everything was dismantled after the war.

Our last visit of the day is to the Shuttleworth Collection at Brooklands.  Here, in memory of their son a pilot killed in 1940, they have an extensive collection of aircraft and vehicles. They had some that we had not seen before.

They had buses, bicycles, motorbikes. They day we visited them a gyrocopter meeting which was the largest ever in the UK.  They cost probably $120,000 and they had the granddaughter of the Spanish designer present. It was developed in the 1920s and who would have thought they ther that old. Interestingly the propeller at the back provides all the thrust and the propeller on top provides the lift. The top propeller has no engine, it turns based on the rear propeller.

We did a quick tour of the Swiss gardens.

We arrived in Winchester and from what we could see prices were dearer than central London. We tried to go to the number 1 restaurant Piecarumba which seems very trendy with names of pies that are quite cute but it was like a sauna inside so we had tea at the golden arches. We did an evening walking tour by ourselves, as it doesn’t get dark till after 9.30 PM. We found King Alfred’s statue, who founded Winchester as his capital. He successfully fought off the invasion from the Danes. We discovered the town’s mill that had been rebuilt and went through the Abbey Gardens, found Winchester College that had been founded in the 14^th Century and is the country’s oldest continuous running college. We investigated the outskirts of the Cathedral and the park’s war memorials. There is a lot to see in the city, including the impromptu street theatre (it was a Saturday night!)

No photos unfortunately, until I can work out how to download them off the phone.