Well, that was all rather successful. The run down was very pleasant - the train was quiet, fast and peaceful, the scenery lovely, and the weather beautiful (in fact it was glorious all weekend, cold but brilliantly sunny with only a few flakes of snow on Fri night/Sat morning). Ken wasn't at court so we caught an earlier train (to elucidate: I didn't want to leave Tyjer alone for any longer than I had to so we were going to catch a later train if Ken was working) which gave us longer in town.
I found the stained glass window Ken wanted - he's working on a book about St Anne's Well at the moment, and Exeter Cathedral has a window portraying St Anne with her daughter and grandson - and the extremely (one might almost say overly) informative guide also pointed out a carving of 'Mary receiving education at the foot of St Anne' outside the chapel of St George, which was a bonus. (it now costs £5 - under 16's free - to visit the cathedral, but you don't have to pay to take photographs, so it's not too steep.)
Afterwards we checked out the charity shops, where I found the boxed set of the first season of Dead Like Me for £6.99 - a terrific find. But the best was in the Wants shop, where Kai found a second-hand classical guitar in almost perfect nick for £25. He's dead chuffed! (Not cheap Chinese crap either - the label says hand-made in Holland...) No amps, unfortunately, but he wasn't too bothered. I bought him a good guitar bag from the music shop a few doors down, and today I'm planning to bus up to Broadwalk to try to get a couple of guitar stands. Then he has to practically gut his room to make space for them!
Earlyish night: I started reading the Torchwood novel Risk Assessment (free when I bought Ken's Yule present books)...
Oh dear. The plot can be described as mediocre at best, the characterisation poor, and the writing made me cringe. It's worrying that it's a BBC publication: their standards have apparently sunk through the floor. I did finish it, with my teeth gritted, then left it with the folks to do with as they will...
Saturday was lovely - weatherwise too. Exmouth was fantastic, the sun blinding where it reflected off the sea, the wind down the river chill but not too heavy, and the tide was going out. The beach is wonderful in the winter in the sun.
Not so much luck in the town shops though, but you can't have everything.
In the evening the folks took us out for a meal (early birthday treat for me) to the Cat and Fiddle Inn... Only problem was Holiday on Ice was showing at the Westpoint arena just half a mile away, and the afternoon performance was chucking out as we were nearing the place. And several cars and a completely full coach turned into the carpark before we could reach it. By the time we'd parked the queue was huge. And they ran out of chicken, so I had to have Beef Lasagne instead (not complaining, it was really delicious, and the portions are huge), and it took an hour for us to be served, but these things happen. We just got the timing wrong. It was still a great meal. If you click the link, have a look at the menu page. Kai and I had the Chocolate Brownie Delight for dessert...
We got back just in time to catch the second part of CSI: Trilogy - very disturbing.
Got to sleep around midnight, but woke up at 4.50 and couldn't get back to sleep, so switched on the light, plugged in Kood and explored my new phone - and somewhere between 5.30 and 6.15 I fell in love with it. It does so much! Found the email sub menu, though haven't set it up yet (Ken and I may as well do both our phones at the same time). Hoping to add my own wallpaper and ringtone in the near future.
Down to visit Ken's folks at 10, spent a couple of hours talking, then back to Exeter for a quick coffee before we had to get down to the station. (The train back was packed, and at each stop twice as many people got on as got off, so gods know how sardined it was by the time it reached Edinburgh. Luckily we only had to go three stops...)
All in all a fun time, though as usual we tried to cram too much into too short a space.
And in other news, I picked up two guitar stands for £6.99 each at the Cash Generator up at Broadwalk. Now we just have to badger Kai into clearing enough space in his room for all the instruments...
24 tonight.
Labels: busyness, Exmouth, holiday
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 11:45 am
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