Tuesday, May 13 - Devon (visit to Exeter)

Today, it was my turn to have a birthday. We planned lower-key touring today with a trip to Exeter, just up the road, and to Teignmouth, just to the east of us, where the English Channel flows inland and creates the estuary we see from our balcony. Our idea was to catch the nearest Park & Ride to Exeter and then take the bus into the city center; but when the sign said it would be two miles to the Park & Ride, we took it to mean that the access road would be two miles; instead, it must have meant that the Park & Ride was two miles away, for the exit went by us like a flash of light.

I punched away at the Nuvi, while its map turned and jolted around as we changed directions, and eventually we pulled over into a parking lot for a commercial enterprise while I located the approximate place of the Park & Ride and told the Nuvi to take us there. We would see signs for the Park & Ride, and the signs would be good through several roundabouts; then when we reached another roundabout, we would see signs to this place, that place, and Other. Other was probably the exit we should have taken, but we had no idea. The Nuvi finally did take us there, though, and we found a place to park.

The bus runs every 9 minutes or so, so we practically stepped out of the car onto the bus, and away we went. It was funny as Lauren, who was sitting behind me, kept saying "We've been on this street. We've been on this street." Yes, we were all over the southern part of Exeter just finding that place!

Exeter has a nice town center with wide open spaces around the cathedral and great pedestrian areas for shopping. They finished a new shopping area last fall, and we enjoyed walking it to the hilt. We were amazed at the number of people walking about, as we were when we went to Barnstaple yesterday; don't these people ever work? The weather is so beautiful, we think there was no one left at home anywhere. They were all in town at least window shopping.


My birthday cake
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

We picked out my birthday cake, and I found a really nice outfit complete with accessories.


Exeter - My birthday outfit
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.


Exeter - My birthday shoes and the price list
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

The dress is especially nice because it has a pocket in it. Not many things for women have pockets these days - not even sweat pants. And I love pockets.



Exeter - My birthday jewelry
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I topped off my choices with some nice jewelry from a local jeweler. It was all in fun, of course, because what need do I have of dresses and jewelry? I wear neither; but these were pretty and if I were the kind of person who bought dresses and jewelry, these would certainly be on my list.

Lauren said he also picked out a birthday card for me, too, but I was somewhere else when he found it so I didn't get to see it. I chastised him because he could have taken a picture of it for me, and didn't! Ah, men! No imagination!!

As a special treat for my birthday, we were serenaded by a clarinetist, in the pedestrian shopping area, playing smooth romantic tunes from the 50s and 60s; and then we enjoyed an informal piano concert in the Cathedral Chapter House! The young pianist (early 20s, perhaps) was especially gifted. She didn't have a program, but she played something wonderful from the classical period - it seemed the piece was just at the end of the classical period and not quite into the beginning of the romantic period; and then she played something vigorous that was reminiscent of Villa Lobos or Hindemith.

I would have loved to have know the composers whose music she played. The first thing I noticed about her when we walked into the Chapter House was the curvature of her fingers and the level top of her hands. She could have held a penny on the back of each of her hands, or should I say a pence, as she played. Her fingers were well trained hammers, and she controlled each of those hammers independently. Her playing was so energetic and precise! She has to be working toward a professional career, if she doesn't have one already (but I suspect she's a student at a local university) because a casual pianist would never develop that much precision. Wow!

It was fun walking around some areas of Exeter and looking for dates on buildings. The Cathedral was in existence before the 1600s, though not in its present condition, and so I suspect my 5-greats grandparents saw it as they were preparing to leave the country. We saw a few hotels and public houses with early dates on them, as well, and I had to wonder about them. Though seeing the city from which they left England for the New World was never a high priority for this trip, it was nonetheless fun to imagine that they were there and saw at least a little bit of what I saw today.

Tomorrow our plan is to see Penzance in Cornwall. We're both finally getting tired, but when I asked Lauren this afternoon if he wanted to skip Cornwall, he said that he didn't even know Penzance was a real place (as in Pirates of Penzance) before we came here, and he thought it would be worth our while to drive down there tomorrow. It will be about a 2-hour drive down, and the roads should be good, so off we will go. This is a tourist mecca here. It's summer on this coast and people come in droves and spend money - old money, new money, borrowed money, whatever. The area responds with some really good main roads, almost equivalent to a motorway (like an interstate in the U.S.).

While we're in Cornwall, we'll stop and have real Cornish Pasties in Cornwall. We've had them in the states, on the recommendation from some friends who discovered them on the east coast; and now we'll have the real thing. All the bakeries around here, and even north of here, carry them. They're just meat pies with some vegetables, including potatoes, but they're world famous. They're not something we would normally eat because they are really saucy and starchy, but we can't pass up the opportunity to have them in their place of origination - Cornwall! Our trip down and back may be just to go to Penzance and Lands End, but when we get back, at least we can say we've been there. As lovely as this trip has been - and we would do it over again were we younger, I just don't think we'll pass this way again. If we do any more long distance travels, there are still a few places that are interesting to us, so I don't think this one will come up again.