Codeshare: my trip to Bletchley Park

[drron]

I agree @VPS . Now I just can’t manage stairs. A couple of my favourite hotels won’t be seeing me anymore.

 

[Skyring]

Looks like a nice AirBnB but why do they only take a photo of the top of the shower - I want to see how big the step is to get in and out

Normally I'd take some shots of my own, but for some reason I didn't and after a little while it was all cluttered with cables and rechargers and so on. As I recall, there was either no lip at all, or one of modest proportions, just enough to stop the water getting out. Not that this was a problem with the shower cubicle being rather long with the getting in end and the shower end about two metres or more apart.

 

[Skyring]

I agree @VPS . Now I just can’t manage stairs. A couple of my favourite hotels won’t be seeing me anymore.

I'm getting to that point. Some of these quaint old AirBnBs don't run to lifts. This one had about twenty steps up.

 

[Skyring]

Interesting observation with the Apex suites… while it’s true they are 6 abreast they still take up around a 20% more room than any other type of seat. Very popular with pax, not with airline bean counters!

Yeah, the tap on is brilliant in London. And automatically caps your daily and weekly spend per the rules!

Just got to remember to keep using the same credit card all the time. I have three in my wallet, and while they all work with the system, they do not make for efficient use of resources if used haphazardly. Looking at my accounts, two trips to and from Heathrow and two days of gadding about on the Tube worked out to about AUD150 plus international transaction fees. Cheaper than taxis or hiring a car, and certainly worth a lot for the reduction in stress that forren public transport always brings, but still …

 

[Skyring]

Bletchley by Bus




I had been keeping my BookCrossing friends informed of my movements. Others were coming in from North America and all over Europe, and if there was a chance of sharing a journey with a mate, I was all for it. It didn't work out, but the Whatsapp channel was full of little bulletins from those arriving. The luggage saga was also being broadcast. There were all sorts of little gifties in my bag and if it didn't arrive there would be some long faces and it wasn't my fault!



Good news on that front. My bag had bypassed Manila and was in the same land as I. I obsessively checked the location during the day. More on this later.

Coffee!

My Delter coffee press was in my baggage, so I couldn't make my own, not unless I settled for some horrid instant brew, but luckily there was a Starbucks only a few metres away and they opened at 0730.



I told the lady barista that she had just saved a life and that there was a Facebook group devoted to the collectible mugs. She was fascinated. As, indeed, am I.

In fact, Routebear in the photo above is perched on the handy little cardboard travel box that the Manila Starbucks mug came in. And under that is the flat cardboard amenity kit Oman Air gave me with nothing terribly exciting or exotic in it. If my bag didn't arrive, though, the socks might come in handy.

On that note, the bus group for Bletchley assembled at 0945 on the other side of Verulanium Park, a fifteen minute stroll away. I could squeeze in a few errands before then.

Up to the Premier Inn at the other end of the market place, to check in with the BookCrossers who were staying there and let the staff know that Qantas might drop off a bag of mine in the next week or so.

Stop by a chemist for more headache tablets (this may have some relation to the bag business).

Rummage through any opshops opening at nine. I needed a wide-brimmed hat, some walking shoes, and anything else that looked good. Preferably a t-shirt bearing the logo of a marathon from several years back that I could wear without comment.

Marks and Spencers opened at eight, and I got some fresh undies, a poloshirt, and a lovely soft cotton tee.

Oxfam had a ridiculously wide-brimmed floppy hat for a couple of quid that I bought and accidentally on purpose left behind in the unit.

Not as ridiculous as the even wider-brimmed floppy hat adorned with flowers that my mate Janice found in Cancer Research when I looked in there and found her browsing the bookshelves on my behalf.

Janice is a BookCrossing mate I first met in New Zealand when we both attended the Christchurch convention in 2009. She lives in a quintessentially charming English village, knows everybody in it, has an MBE, keeps chooks, is delightfully mad, is amazingly wonderful with kids, and I love her utterly.

I slipped away to my digs, changed into my new purchases, hastily threw a fresh powerbank and an Oman Air waterbottle into my now lightened backpack, and galloped off to the meeting point as fast as my flight slip-ons and fresh socks would allow.

(more to come)