Saturday, 22 November 2008

Exeter Xmas Parade

Today was the Exeter City Christmas Parade. Amanda and I duly took up station on the High Street, roughly across the street from Build-A-Bear, at about 20 minutes before the parade was due to begin at noon. We expected to see the usual mix of floats, marching groups, and Santa (known here as Father Christmas). No sooner did the parade begin, however, than we came face to face with Bearemy and Paulette, Build-A-Bear's two mascots! They were the first act in the parade, followed by a group of majorettes.



Behind the majorettes came a couple of charity groups collecting money. Rather than throwing candy into the crowd, parades here feature people walking along the crowd with buckets to collect cash for charities. Behind the charity groups came Father Christmas, who was followed by another group of majorettes (who knew they were so popular here?).



After the tail of the parade passed us, we scampered down the street to the courtyard of the Guildhall Shopping Centre (what was formerly Victoria Street before shops were built over part of it in the 1970s), and ran into Bearemy and Paulette again! We both managed to get some nice pictures with them, before they fled to escape the "snow" that was falling from the sky. The fake snow was made of soap bubbles, which could have made a mess of their fur. Shortly after they escaped, Amanda had to go to work at Sports World (which is located in the Guildhall Shopping Centre), and I went on to Tesco to go grocery shopping and then headed home to work on a book review.



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