STROLLERS MYSTERY WEEKEND

NOVEMBER 2014

At 8.00am on a Saturday morning in November 46 people were boarding a coach for an unknown destination. Only myself and Mick, plus off course our driver, Colin, knew where we were headed for the weekend. As we turned left onto the A46 at Middle Rasen a murmur went round the coach, is it South we are going or towards Nottingham? Of course as soon as we turned onto the A1 it was obvious we were heading South, but where to? After we left Peterborough Services I asked for ideas of where we were heading next as we had a visit planned for the afternoon and was sur-prised when no one on the coach guessed where we were heading. It was the

famous Bletchley Park, where we spent 4 hours learn-ing all about the code breaking that was carried out there during WW2. Some of us were even lucky enough to see the Bombe machine actually working and after looking round the huts and reading all the information that was available it really made you wonder how did 10000 people work there during the war and manage to keep the work they did secret!

After leaving Bletchley we headed off to our hotel which this time we had two people correctly guess as Letchworth. We stayed at the lovelyLetchworth Hall Hotel, which was built in 1625 (and of course added to

over the years) and said to be haunted, but thankfully even though we were in the original part of the building we never sighted the "bawdy vicar" . After a very good three course dinner and a good nights sleep, we were ready to be on the road again by 9.15 the next morning for our first stop of the day. This time everyone guessed where we were going as we forgot to ask the question of where we were heading until AFTER we had passed the sign to Cambridge. The bag of chocolates I had bought as prizes wasn't going to last long.

Our early start was arranged so we would be in Cambridge early enough for people to be able to go to the morning service at Kings College Chapel and quite a large group headed off across The Backs to join the queue outside and were soon in the magnifi-cent chapel even managing to get seats in the choir stalls for the service (which coincidentally was taken by the retired Bishop of Lincoln). Other members took an open top bus tour of the city and were lucky enough to see the Rememberance Day Pa-rade from their ringside seats on the top deck, whilst some just relaxed with a

coffee and a bit of retail therapy. After lunch we headed off to Anglesey Abbey, a National Trust property with a beautiful winter walk down to the water mill and back through the gardens. For three of our members the walk was a bit much after our hec-

tic schedule so they took advantage of the electric scooter hire and had a great time on them. Watch out on the streets of Market Rasen in the future. I think they enjoyed it a little too much. (Boys and toys comes to mind) On our final day the group were getting crafty and spotted Colin had set his SatNav for Ely before he loaded the cases, so instead of giving prizes for our destination we had a quiz on the way to Ely. Quite a task to wake our brains up after another early start. To make up for this we had coffee and homemade biscuits in the lovely Poets House Hotel before we had an excellent guided tour of Oliver Cromwell's House. This then gave the group time for lunch and a quick look round the cathedral before we headed home. We landed back in Market Rasen at 6.30pm, everyone tired but feeing they had enjoyed a very full, varied weekend. Cynthia Burke.