Cathedral to Quay

Today, we went on the Cathedral to Quay tour. As the name suggests, it goes from the cathedral, out to the city wall, where it cuts south, joining South Street at the former location of the South Gate, and then continues on to the river and down to the quayside.

We joined the tour a few minutes late (the guide was almost finished with the standard "Potted History of Exeter"), and the first thing he talked about was Richard Hooker's statue. Hooker, as near as I was able to determine from the guide's comments, made the Anglicans more Catholic. After that, we went over to look at the cathedral, which we have now done on several tours. We took an up-close look at a flying buttress, and it was explained to us that during the Exeter Blitz in 1942, a German bomber took out two of the twelve buttresses on the north side of the cathedral. If it had been three, the roof might have collapsed. On hearing this, Amanda proclaimed that the architect (who has been dead for 800 years, as she knew full well) deserved a raise.

After the cathedral, we went over to the Dean and Minister of Music's house, numbers 10 and 11 Cathedral Close. We were able to go into their courtyard, which is reportedly much prettier in the spring (it looked pretty bleak today, I must say). We were, however, not allowed to walk past a certain point in the courtyard, which made looking around a little bit difficult.

After that, we meandered our way through several stories about medieval Exeter (the typical ones about people with royal connections that lived here) and then heard the standard lecture on the city wall. After we had passed the last of the wall, we heard about the prison that was formerly at the South Gate. Thieves were held in the lower level, which doubled as part of the city sewer, and debtors were held in the upper level, where they dangled shoes out the window by their strings to beg for cash, thus giving rise to the phrase "on a shoestring."

Moving on, we saw several Georgian and Victorian-era houses, and then proceeded on to the River Exe. We heard about how Countess Wear (not on the tour) got its name (a greedy countess built a wear across the river to block shipping traffic because she wanted a cut of the profits), and how the canal was established. Apparently, a descendent of the countess about two hundred years after her initial wear extended the wear to cut off all riverine traffic, instead of allowing cargo lighters through. There was nothing that anyone could do about it, until the unlucky guy was found to be plotting against Henry VIII, who promptly locked him in the Tower and had him executed. The people of Exeter, on hearing this, wrote to the King asking for permission to remove the wear, which Henry gladly granted as a dig at his now-deceased former courtier. Sadly for Exeter, the river had accumulated too much sediment behind the wear to allow ships into the port of Exeter. As a result, the city hired a Welshman to build a canal, which he did, although it took him 60 years. The canal opened in 1832, the same day that the cholera epidemic of that year broke out in Exeter. (Coincidence? I think not!) Unfortunately for Exeter's merchants, the wool trade was declining by the mid-19^th century, and the canal was never utilized to its full potential.

Today, the quayside is primarily a tourist attraction, and is home to a great many craft shops, and also the home of Scout Troop 19, which weaseled a new Scout Hut out of developers who were re-developing the quay in the 1980s. The tour ended by plugging the virtues of the Custom House tour, which is not currently available. We were also told the Custom House featured two things, known as the King's Pipe and the King's Drain, where goods that were caught being smuggled were (officially) either burned or poured out, as appropriate. The guide closed by saying "If you believe that, then you'll believe anything."

Christmas Dinner

On Christmas morning, we got up, got dressed, and went to church. As usual, the service began at 10:30 am, although, as promised in advance by Rev. Sails, it lasted less than 45 minutes. It included everyone (under the age of 10) sharing their favorite Christmas gift. We had a boy (about three) sitting in front of us who came dressed as Father Christmas, and was none too happy to be wearing the hat when his mother tried to put it on him. However, someone else sitting nearby prevailed upon him to put it on, and Rev. Sails picked him up and showed him off to everyone, and commented to Little Father Christmas on how funny everyone looked (and noted that he got to look at us every week). About ten minutes later, Little Father Christmas escaped from his mother and went darting up the right aisle of the church, with mom in hot pursuit (she caught him about three rows from the front; they had been sitting about 15 rows back from there). One of the older ladies wandered over to mom shortly thereafter and offered to take him outside the sanctuary to play with him, which mom gratefully accepted.

Amanda, incidentally, refused to show off her Build-a-Moose, Chris Moose, arguing that she was over the age of ten. I was sad.

The sermon was about there being no circumstances in which there was no room for a particular type of person on the church, which we thought was rather fitting, given our experience of the night before at the cathedral. It was nice to hear that God loves gay people and that they should be welcomed in church. I gather that Rev. Sails and a lot of Baptist ministers that I know would not get along very well.

After the service ended (in under 45 minutes, as promised), we milled about and talked to people for a while as the Leas caught up with the people who were youth-aged when they first moved to Exeter. Most of those people now have children that are youth-aged, and Dr. Lea commented on how most of them look very much like their parents did all those years ago. After everyone had filtered out of the church, we walked back to the Lea's house, which is on the other side of the city centre. Our walk took us past the cathedral, through the (empty) back side of Princesshay, past the St. Luke's Campus, and very nearly all the way home. The Leas, it turns out, live all of about 10 minutes away from where we do. It's about the same distance from the Mint (25 minutes walk), so we got back to their house shortly before noon. We then set about talking with Dr. Lea, and discovered that we had all lived in Germany in the past. He lived there in the 1970s, and Amanda and I, of course, lived there two years ago.

Dr. Lea then had to depart for the lab on campus to "Feed the Rats their Christmas Dinner," as it's called. He notes that they don't actually have any rats anymore; however, as the guy in charge, he still gets to feed them on Christmas as part of a long tradition of lab animal care. While he was away, his sister and brother-in-law arrived. His sister is a former patent attorney turned Methodist minister, and his brother-in-law is a retired history teacher. We snacked on crisps, olives, and a few other appetizers as we talked with them and awaited the arrival of one of the Lea's sons. This is the one who is local; their other two children live in Germany and California. He was bringing the last of the food (the fried potatoes), along with his partner and her two children (as Mrs. Lea was careful to point out to us, they are not their grandparents).

One of the boys (the older one, if memory serves) went around lighting candles in the dining room, including lighting the incense cone inside the Smoking Man, who was purchased in (appropriately) Germany. After a while, he had to be relocated to the patio, as he was overpowering the assembled diners with his smoke.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, some other smoke was being produced. It turns out that one of the two figgy puddings that was cooking boiled off all the water in its pan, which led to quite a bit of smoke forming in the kitchen. Once the minor disaster of the resulting smoke had been dealt with, we began to eat the figgy pudding and other assorted desserts. The figgy pudding, we were told, is an acquired taste, and the recipie is passed down from mother to daughter-in-law (apparently, boys are picky about how they like their figgy pudding!). Dr. Lea told us that he was the only one in the family who really liked figgy pudding, and Mrs. Lea cut in and said that she had developed a taste for it. Amanda liked it, although I wasn't a huge fan. I don't expect it to pop up next Christmas, but she might surprise me.

No Room at the Cathedral

Tonight, we went to the Christmas Eve Service at Exeter Cathedral. Barely.

The service was slated to begin at 6 pm. We arrived at about 10 minutes to six, and were promptly told that the church was full, and we couldn't come in. The building absolutely was not full, and there was enough room for another good 500 people (there were only about 50 who were shivering outside being told there wasn't room). Apparently, all the wasted space was necessary so that the happy little procession around the cathedral could take place. After about 40 minutes, one of the staff was kind enough to let us in, after some other people had left. We ended up in the far back corner of the right nave of the cathedral, near the designated "Exit" door. For reference, the cathedral has three doors: The main doors in the centre, and two smaller doors, one on each side. The one on the left is the designated entrance door, and the one on the right is the designated exit door. Typically, the centre door is not opened. However, at the end of the service, all three were opened for people to depart.

After we got inside, we were able to see most of the procession around the cathedral (which was ridiculous), and everyone in their full clerical uniforms (including the local bishop). Perhaps they should have been more concerned about getting people into the cathedral on Christmas Eve than they were about their silly little rituals.

Christmas Eve

Today, I worked at Build-A-Bear from 9am-2pm. It was quite a nice day to be there. We had free Christmas stickers sheets to give out to anyone who wanted them and free calendars for those who bought bears. Everyone was in very good spirits, and most of us Bear Builders wore ribbons on our heads to make the day a bit more festive. When it was time to go home, I got a very nice surprise- each Bear Builder was given a smaller version of Build-A-Bear's Christmas moose with light-up antlers and an assortment of Cadbury chocolate. I am quite tickled about my moose, whom I have named Chris. He is much cuter than his larger counterpart- and I liked the large ones enough that I nearly bought one on double discount day!

When I got through at Build-A-Bear, Will and I went to Tyepyedong for lunch. Supposedly, this was part of my Christmas present from him, though I suspect he really just wanted a great meal at a restaurant we both enjoy. 

Zed is for Zebra

At Build-a-Bear this morning,  I learned that the animal that I have always called a "zee-bruh" is known as a "zeh-bruh" here in England when my boss Dave asked me to stuff one for a little girl. Later, I remarked to a colleague that this pronunciation was odd to me. "In the U.S.," I explained, "the zebra is always used as the classic example of a word starting with the letter Z when kids learn the alphabet, because zee is the first syllable of zebra." My colleague smiled and nodded, politely. When I got home and shared the story with Will, however, he burst into laughter. "She probably had no idea what you were on about," he remarked, gleefully reminded my that in British English, the last letter of the alphabet is called "zed" rather than "zee!"

Decorating for Christmas

Selecting reasonable Christmas decorations when spending Christmas thousands of miles from home can be a bit of a challenge. Trees, lights, and other large, traditional decorations can be quite expensive and useless to take home at the end of the year, so a little creativity is in order. Will and I began decorating after receiving our most recent care package from Mom and Dad, which included candy canes, fall leaves made of felt, two Christmas guest towels, and a rubber ducky dressed up as a reindeer. We bought a tiny tree for £1 at Poundland and decorated it with the fall leaves and candy canes. We also decorated it with some small Christmas crackers, also purchased at Poundland. Then, we went to Cancer Research UK and bought a set of tiny ornaments and three angels, one holding a candle, another holding a wreath, and a third with its hand clasped together. We placed the angels on top of a row of Will's naval history books, surrounded by Christmas crackers. (We're planning to give the angels to Mom, Granna, and Will's Grandmommy when we get back to the U.S., so they are serving dual purposes.) We then put the ornaments on the little tree and placed the tree and the rubber ducky in front of the row of books, and next to the nativity scene Will bought me for Christmas a while back. We made the guest towel into wall hangings, and we strung a piece of green rope that we've had sitting around for a while across two of the walls in the living room and hung cards on it. I think they look quite nice. 

When Are You Closing?

Last Thursday at Sports World, a customer asked Amanda a question: When are you closing? She assumed that he was asking about that night, as Thursday late-night shopping is common in Exeter, and told him 9 pm. He said, "No, I mean closing permanently; you went into receivership, and you, Woolworths, and JJB Sports are all closing." This was news to Amanda, and so she did some checking, and it turns out that Woolworths and JJB Sports are closing. Sports World is owned by Sports Direct, a different company (which happens to own the distribution licenses for the No Fear brand in most of the world, but not the U.S.).

Receivership, incidentally, is similar to bankruptcy. The Exeter Woolworths is closing; Amanda and I were there yesterday morning, and it was not a pretty sight. It had been about a month since I had been to Woolworths, and the last time I was there, it looked like a normal store. This time, something was clearly going on. There were many empty shelves, probably a little over half of the shelves in the store. Most of the items that were left in the store were on a significant discount, the smaller ones were around 20%. I picked up a lamp for about £2, and the bulbs for it for another 50p or so. It's very sad to see Woolworths going under; they had the best collection of decent, inexpensive goods that we'd managed to find in town. With them gone, we'll be left with Marks & Spencer, which is considerably more expensive in general (from comparison of a few household items after we first arrived, from 50-100% more expensive), and the charity shops, which were even cheaper than Woolworths, although their selection is generally very limited.

When looking for a particular item in the charity shops, you can expect to be looking for several weeks before it turns up. For example, I searched for a coat for about two months in the charity shops, but never found anything in my size that was even close to what I was looking for. At Marks & Spencer, I found a couple of coats right away, but they cost well over £100. At another shop in town that has a more limited focus than Marks & Spencer, I happened to catch a good sale and find a coat that was almost exactly what I was looking for, at a cost of less than £50.

 

JJB Sports, incidentally, tended to be a pretty expensive sporting goods store. Amanda and I went by one night, and never managed to find anything that we hadn't seen cheaper someplace else (most often at Sports World). As far as we're concerned, it won't be missed.

Carol Service

Carol services are a British Christmas institution.

The basic idea of a carol service is that a bunch of people get together and sing carols in a semi-church service-like atmosphere. They seem to always include congregational hymns and scripture reading; however, beyond that, there don't appear to be any hard rules. Some contain a sermon; some don't. Some have a choir singing additional songs, others don't.

Amanda and I went to the Mint's carol service, which did feature a choir but no sermon. For the sake of comparison, the ECU's service featured a sermon, but no choir. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to make it to some other carol services over the next two weeks so we can broaden our sample to get a better idea of what goes on.

My Amazing Colored Coat

I've been looking for a new winter coat for quite a while. We had been keeping our eyes out at the charity shops for weeks, but nothing had turned up in my size that was remotely satisfactory.

Today, we deviated a bit from the charity shop strategy. After taking some pictures at the cathedral, we went over to visit the Edinburgh Woolen Mill, which is neither in Edinburgh or a Mill, and sells products not made of wool (go figure). I could spend all day picking out clothes there, because they have lots of nice sweaters, shirts, trousers, jackets, hats, etc., and those are just the men's clothes. Amanda actually picked up a few shirts that were on a massive sale earlier in the year. Today, it was my turn.

I found a nice, big coat for £55.00, with an extra 20% off. With the discount, that came to £44.50, or $67. Even better, we'll be getting another 15% back when we leave the country in May, as we can get our VAT sent back to us for being non-Brits. I look forward to getting my $9 back!

What does the coat look like? Well, it looks a lot like my coat from Germany did, except it's a little bit bigger and has more pockets. Also, it is green instead of brown, with navy accents instead of brown. It's nice and roomy, and the pockets are big enough to actually put things in (what a concept)! Amanda says I look pretty good in it .

You Don’t Have This in the States

She was right.

When I arrived at church this morning, I was warned by one of the ladies handing out programs that it would be an unusual day. Today was the Exeter Civic Service, held at Mint Methodist Church. As she put it, it was an event of pomp and high ceremony. She was understating things.

The service began with the procession of the Lord Mayor of Exeter and his party from the Guildhall to the Mint. Amanda got lots of nice pictures of this. She had to be at Build-a-Bear before church ended, so she got a ringside seat for the procession. The Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor, and the rest of the party were all dressed in their full official regalia, and, as it was a state occasion, by royal edict, the hat and sword presented to the city by King Henry VII in the fifteenth century preceded the Lord Mayor's party.

At the service, the significance of the hat and sword were explained. During the course of the explanation, the Lord Mayor asked what year Henry VII became King. Much to our shame, the history doctoral student that I was sitting next to and I couldn't come up with the year, although we both got the decade right (the year was 1485). I did, however, correctly answer who the previous king was (Richard III).

The sermon was given by the Lord Mayor's Chaplain. Now, I'm sure it's crossed your mind, why was the service held at Mint? Because the Lord Mayor's Chaplain is a member at the Mint. The Mint has several retried ministers in the congregation, which reportedly can make for some interesting good-natured jabs being traded among the active and former ministers involved.

Here are Amanda's myriad shots of the parade (which moved so slowly that she almost mistook it for Christmas).

Stash!

At the University of Exeter, each society and club has something called a "stash." What is a stash? It's a set of clothes that bear the society/club name, university crest, and, sometimes, the member's name.

For example, archery has three shirt options (hoodie, polo, rugby) and a bag. The shirts come in white and bottle green (and white/navy combo for the rugby shirt). I got the bottle green polo and bottle green hoodie, with my name on both. I got them at the session this morning. I'm very happy with them!

International Postgraduate Discussion Group

Yesterday, I took part in a discussion group composed of international postgraduate students at Exeter. We were asked a number of questions, ranging from why we came to Exeter, to what resources we used to select a postgrad programme, to what our experiences with the admissions process were. We were also asked to take a look at the Exeter prospectus, and those from several other universities, and talk about what we did and didn't like from each one.

At the end, we were asked what one thing about our experience could have been better. All eight of us took the opportunity to vent our frustrations at the Accommodation Office. It turns out that absolutely no one had anything good to say about them. The people who wanted to live on campus (3) couldn't, the people who wanted to live off campus (4) were required to live on campus, and the person who wanted to move from one campus dorm to another couldn't do that, either.

All told, we said that the university would be a much better place, if only the Accommodation Office could get their act together!

Date Night II- Mamma Mia!

Ever since we moved into our apartment, we've had to walk past the Odeon Cinema every time we wanted to go downtown (for example, to go shopping, eat out, or go to church). I've wanted to go to a movie for weeks now, and I finally got the opportunity tonight. The cinema was having a 2-for-1 special on tickets to the final showing of "Mamma Mia!," and we decided that it was definitely worth the £3.70 to go see it. Ironically, Will and I first became interested in seeing that movie during the summer when the interim preacher at my parents' church mentioned it in one of his sermons. He completely disapproved of the movie and its entire premise, but his plot summary peaked our interest. As it turns out, his plot summary was highly inaccurate, but the movie was still a lot of fun. I love musicals in general, and this one is no exception. 

The Odeon Cinema is a very nice theater, though it is not particularly large. It definitely makes a great place to go for a date night.

Study Skills Seminars

Over the course of the term, I have attended a number of study skills seminars for postgraduates offered by HuSS (my school at Exeter). They have covered topics such as citations, essay writing, effective reading, what professors expect in seminars, how the British academic system works, etc. Several of them have been deathly dull; however, most have been at least somewhat interesting. Granted, the interesting part hasn't always been in the material.

Take today, for instance. Today, shortly after the seminar began, the fire alarm went off. Everyone dutifully gathered their things and walked down the stairwell, up the hall to the main lobby, and out the front doors, then across the porch and down the stairs to stand along the street. It turns out that this was an unannounced fire drill. "Unannounced" fire drills are different from "unscheduled" fire drills in one important way: Although the students and professors get no advanced warning, the fire department does. As a result, we at least didn't have to wait for the fire department to clear the building before we were allowed back inside. All told, the fire drill took about twenty minutes, which meant that we had to hurry through some aspects of today's workshop.

In archery news, my shooting was quite a bit better today. I shot an average of 8, 6, 3 tonight, with a total of 128 on 24 shots, or an average of just over 5 per shot. Not counting my opening round, when I was still trying to sight my bow properly (in which I shot 3, miss, miss), I shot a 125 in 21 shots, or a little shy of 6 per shot.

Nativity Scene

The other day, I found the perfect nativity scene at the Cancer Research UK shop in Exeter. It was hand-made out of yarn by one of the shop's volunteers and is extremely lightweight, which means I should have no trouble getting it back to the U.S. Will bought it for me as a Christmas gift and gave it to me early so that I could use it to start decorating our flat for Christmas. Now I just need to gather a few more decorations, and the place will begin to look appropriately festive.

Archery

In keeping with the instructions of one of our Squad coaches, I've taken to writing down my shooting records. Here are my stats from tonight:

• 5, 3, miss
  
• 9, 6, 3
  
• 7, 2, miss
  
• 8, miss, miss
  
• 2, 1, miss
  
• miss, miss, miss
  
• 2, 1, miss
  
• 8, 5, 4
  
• 10, 8 , miss
  
• 7, 5, 2
  
• 7, 4, miss
  

All that averages out to something like 7, 3, miss, or 4, 3, 3. Overall, in 33 shots, I shot 109, which averages out to less than 4 per shot. My eventual goal is to average 9, 7, 6 consistently, which would have put me at a point total of 242 for the night. I missed by more than half.

In other words, my shooting was pretty much rubbish.

VAT

The British Government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to stimulate the economy by lowering the sales tax, know as Value Added Tax (VAT), from 17.5% to 15% for the next 13 months. Personally, I think the government could have put the 12.5 billion GBP that the tax discount will cost to better use. This change is expected to save the average resident aroung 200 GBP over the time period it is in effect. Interestingly, however, the law passed to make this change does not require retailers to lower the price of items to reflect the change. Thus, since British prices include VAT, some businesses, including Sports World, have opted to leave prices the same and simply make a larger profit from each item.

While this might seem unreasonable, it is far more practical that trying to change the price of every taxable item in a large store or training sales assistants to know which items are taxed and which are not so that they can make the adjustments at the till. For many stores, this would be a logistical nightmare and would cause more harm than good, defeating the original purpose of the tax reduction.

Despite this, however, some customers feel strongly that the prices should be lowered. One customer at Sport World today insisted that we call a supervisor, because, in her words, "I've been to six shops today, and at every one of them, they've taken some off at the till. And you're supposed to, too!" Another customer asked if prices were reduced and responded by calling us "Meanies!" when I told her they weren't. Other customers remarked that it was "odd" that we weren't reducing prices like Marks and Spencers and some other High Street shops.

Council Tax

In the UK, the primary method that local governments use to fund things is called Council Tax. In essence, it's an occupancy tax that is levied on all employed persons who live in the district. There are various council tax "bands," which are based upon property value. Tax is assessed at a different amount for each band. The bands are fairly broad, so there can be a wide deviation in property values within a band.

Everyone pays council tax except for students and the unemployed. Getting registered as a student can take a bit of doing. Amanda and I submitted our paperwork to register as students over two weeks ago, and when I called today to check on the status of our filing for an exemption, they told me that they had mailed us a letter stating that both of our exemptions had been granted (hallelujah!) on Friday. I assume it will arrive tomorrow, which is the day after the council tax payment would have been due.

As an interesting note, if one or more people who live in a residence are students, but there is one person who is not, the council tax bill is reduced by 25%, and the remaining person/people is/are left to foot the bill for the remaining 75%. This provides a very strong incentive for students to live only with each other, or for one student to live with four or five young professionals. I don't quite understand the logic behind the system, but everyone here seems to either accept it or be resigned to it.