pumpkinstrokemarrow

Back for our what appears to be the first visit since the 21st January 2010 or thereabouts.

First part of the visit entirely satisfactory. The church of St. Eustacius is still there and still very grand, I dare say far and away the grandest of the four churches in the land which honour this particular saint, FIL's patron saint. Or almost, it being his family rather than his given name which is that of the saint. So not his name day in the European sense. The small white mouse was still decorating one of the pew ends and the three hares were still decorating one of the ceiling bosses. We were also treated to a bit of organ rehearsal with the organ, apparently of modest size, producing a very immodest amount of noise.

On the way there we had tried to get into the even larger Catholic church up the hill, a massive grey contruction of the 19th century; huge bell tower and huge porch (above). Vaguely Byzantine. Very firmly locked. I assumed that this was a Catholic attempt to assert their primacy in the town at the time of their emancipation, while wondering where they found the money for the thing. But I was quite wrong. We learned at St. Eustacius that the massive grey construction was the product of a niveau riche breakaway movement which turned out to be a white elephant and which was then sold on to the Catholics. Perhaps it being firmly locked means that it has remained elephantine blanche.

Then onto the usually excellent chip shop where the chips and cod remained excellent but where my haddock was disappointing. Wet and fishy tasting rather than firm and dry.

Pushed onto the Oxfam shops to find that their previously wonderful seam of classical vinyl has been exhausted. Emerged empty handed.

Two buzzards on the way home. One high flying just before Moretonhampstead and one low flying just after. Plus a demi-tweet in Tavistock itself in the form of a buff chested finch size singing bird which flapped off before I could get near enough to work out what it was. This being reasonably close these days. Probably a male chaffinch.

I close with a plug for Exeter library. They might charge aliens £4.40 an hour for access, but it is access in a large, cool & comfortable room and access without one's screen being festooned by very loud advertisments. Plus MS Office, USB ports & etc. Just like the screen which I get at home - unlike the festooned & chargeable screen in a hot cubby hole offered by the hotel. Which last is odd, the hotel being a Mercure, in the same group as Novotel, with the Novotel at Ipswich having offeried us a very splendid large screen Apple, entirely unfestooned and entirely free of charge.