Belt & Braces and the Peace Gardens

Reader if you’ve been following this blog for some time you will know we are a ‘belt & braces’ couple.  Waiouru has two alternators; diesel engine & petrol generator; pump out toilet & emergency porta potti; two water tanks; central heating and diesel stove, three fuel tanks. 

When 3 altered our phone and data plan we discontinued it and reverted back to our old usb dongle and Zoom wifi.  But that left us with only one data system.  The internet is our communications lifeline and our ‘belt & braces’ strategy required us to have a secondary system.  The steel tube we live in frequently blocks out any signal which is why we have the aerial on the roof.  The need is for a second dongle that has an external aerial port and a wifi adapter to provide a Local Area Network (LAN) inside.  The cheapest option would be to combine the two devices and search for a mifi dongle with an external aerial port.  The current mifi dongles don’t have an external port and why would we want to pay for a new dongle.  After some research I identified the preferred dongle to be a Huawei E583C. 

They have been superseded by 4G dongles but 3G will be sufficient for us.   I found a used one for sale on FleaBay and successfully purchased it for less than the price of three beers.  We used the Poste Restante service to have it delivered however when I went to collect it the lady behind the counter had a quick look and then told me it hadn’t arrived.  Not to be dissuaded I told her it had been delivered 1st Class and I’d already seen the confirmation.  She went away again before returning with a small package before asking my name.  I had an internal smile remembering my name had been on the ID card I’d previously given her. 

Well the device is now back on the boat but I have discovered it is locked to the T-Mobile network.  Something the seller omitted to include in the description.  A late walk to the nearest EE shop revealed that EE have a policy of not unlocking their devices.  I’m now searching for a solution to that problem.  There will be a solution, I just have to find it!

I see Halfie has left a comment on our last post regarding the “renaming” of Birmingham’s New Street Station to  Grand Central Station.   I can confirm it is Grand Central Station and have the photographic evidence.

I agree with Halfie……. The name will probably cause some confusion.  I wonder if Network Rail will change the name on the rail system?

Whilst taking an indirect walk from Morrison’s back to Waiouru I came upon an interesting building.  Initially I thought it might be one of the original city gates but after further exploring realised it is the remains of St Thomas Church completed in 1829.  The majority of the building was destroyed during a bombing raid in 1940.

St Thomas on Bath Row, Birmingham

On the other side of the remains of the church is a small park.  It’s actually Peace Gardens and was laid out in 1955 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

The colonnade was built in 1925 as a WW1 memorial and relocated to the Peace Gardens in 1989.  The gardens contain a memorial to British service personnel who were killed or injured as a result of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific and Australia.