Derby, UK

We spent a few weeks in the UK to catch up with family and recharge the batteries. While there we celebrated Shea’s eight birthday, cheered on Derby Co, went to a LEGO exhibit in the museum and explored some of the beautiful Peak District.

We took a trip to Milton Keynes for the bank holiday weekend. A lunchtime stop at Aylesbury was nice. We saw the David Bowie statue there, a nod to some concerts he did there and a mention in a song lyric from Ziggy Stardust.

We also took a trip to Great Missenden to visit the Ronald Dahl museum. It was in the village where he used to live. The entrance gates were specially designed by Warner Brothers. to replicate those from the ‘Charlie and The Chocolate Factory’ movie.

Inside the gates were rooms filled with information about Ronald’s Dahl’s life. His office where most of his famous works were produced showed how he liked to close himself off from the outside world in order to get lost in his work. There were several writing stations to encourage budding writers and a story time every 30 minutes. There was also an informative video where he talked about his writing and shared pointers like ‘never start writing on a blank page, try to come back to some unfinished work’ and also ‘leave a good idea hanging there to write about at a future time’, this would give the writer the interest to return to the writing bench and resume their work.

After our museum visit we walked to the nearby cemetery to pay our respects at his grave side.

The cemetery was on a hillside and his grave was under the shade of a big tree which had a memorial bench installed at its base engraved with the names of his family.

Next day we went to Bletchley Park for an education of a different kind.

Having recently rewatched the ‘Imitation Game’ we were all set to learn about the codebreakers and their contribution to ending the war and saving lives. The boys got a secret spy pack with several missions and games to keep them entertained. The first room showed a short film of life in Britain during the war. We got to see the Enigma Machine and to try out some decoding challenges.

Then we walked through the beautiful gardens to the Mansion. The gardens were gorgeous. Some people sat around in deckchair with picnics by the lake. There were information boards with information on what life was like there for the workers. The hours were long and they weren’t allowed to share any information with anybody or visit any hut other than the one in which they worked. Some sports were played on the lawns while choirs and drama groups were also set up to keep the workers entertained.

The audio guides included cryptic challenges and kept us entertained as we walked around the cottages and huts. The codebreakers here designed machines to help decode messages coming from the enemy. This led to the development of the first computer called Colossus and the Turing Bombe developed by Alan Turing. Operations here came to an end on 1946 but all information was classified until mid 1970s.