IBM has a very large (huge) facility in Hursley which is near Winchester - southeast of London. One of the chaps from the project needed to go to Hursley to pick up his repaired laptop and I asked if I could tag along.
I took the train from Waterloo station to Winchester. The SouthWest trains are much nicer than the First Capital Connect trains I took to Welwyn Garden City. The ride to Winchester was about an hour. I enjoyed looking at the country side and even saw the canal which I walked along my first weeks here.
I arrived in Winchester earlier than the agreed to meeting time and so headed into town. I was following the signs to the cathedral - Winchester Cathedral -- everyone sing along. As is typical, the signs stopped pointing the way to the cathedral and I still couldn't see it. I headed in one direction and, of course, it wasn't the correct one. That was okay. I ended up at the Great Hall and some old Norman castle ruins right in the town.
I headed back to the train station to meet Lakshmi Shankar, my guide for Hursley. I hopped in his car and off we went. Hursley is a tiny little village. Besides a wonderful pub is the IBM facility. It is a campus really. There is a main manor house that is mostly used for offices and meeting rooms.
Some three thousand people work there. Almost all in software design and development and research.
Lakshmi did a great job showing me around and introduced me to IBMers that could be of help in my job.
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