Busy day in Exeter

Last night was the Party on the Quay. We wandered out at around 7:30 and discovered that there were THOUSANDS of people in our quiet little Quayside space. Loud band doing covers of American music. Beer flowing fairly freely. Weird stilt-people. Jugglers, puppet shows, a guy who "walked" up a flight of stairs in a handstand. We were glad to just walk a few hundred feet home and go right to bed when we wanted. At 10:30 we woke up the girls (who weren't really asleep anyway) and watched the five-minutes of fireworks.

This morning I walked Caroline to her ballet class. She's been going every Saturday we've been in town. It's about a 20 minute walk, we left early because she wanted to see how the cleanup was going on the Quay. We realized pretty quickly that there was something else happening today -- rowing races on the River Exe.

But off to ballet, with stops on the way at the library to return a book and the Royal Mail to mail two letters. On the way home we stopped in Somerfield for a few needed items and at the green grocer for some fruit & freshly baked bread.

Yea, I really like the walking life. There's definitely something to be said for it.

After dropping our groceries off at home we all headed out to see the races on the River. This was very fun as we've been watching folks practice rowing for the last 3 months and now we are getting to see actual races! Turns out the races went all day -- up until 6 pm. We sat on the end of the river wall, dangled our feet, and cheered on Exeter teams whenever they were racing.

At one point, after lunch, I headed up to the City Centre to take a picture of the Glove (see below) and get some cash out of the ATM. I went by the Cathedral -- the bells were ringing, I thought maybe there was a wedding and yes, there was! I noted the dress was not strapless. I think maybe that trend is leaving us, finally.

The Craft Show on the Green was in full swing. About a 100 booths full of handmade items. Plus some food stalls. There were also some "country" dancers, kinda like Irish Dance but not exactly. I watched them for a bit. There was also a jazz ensemble playing near the Cathedral. I was getting close to sensory overload but it was good.

The High Street was packed with people, a "veritable sea of humanity!" is what keeps repeating in my head over and over every time I go to the High Street. There are just so many people, I don't know where they all come from. And so very many different sorts of people, if you know what I mean.

After I got my money and took my picture I went back towards the Cathedral, by this time the wedding guests had left and there was an open air evangelistic program going on, sponsored by a new church in Exeter. They had music playing and three teenaged girls performing a dance, it was very well done and I watched for a while.

I walked back down to the Quay and we watched some more rowing.