Exeter

Went up to Exeter on the train on Monday night. There was a training course which started at 9:30 in the morning which I needed to attend for work. It was a choice of either going up the night before, or getting up at silly-o-clock in the morning to catch the 5:10 train out of Penzance in the morning. I chose the former.

I left work early to catch the train to Exeter, even though Exeter is just over in the neighbouring county of Devon, it's still nearly three hours away on the train. Unbelieveable! I did intend to do a bit of stitching on the train on the journey up there, but I felt really tired (cold was still getting me down) and not at all up to the concentration needed. I had woken up at 2:00 am the night before and didn't get back to sleep till about 6:00 am so I really didn't want to get up on Monday morning. By the evening I was feeling the effects of the lack of sleep, so I just sat through the journey and tried to relax.

I was a little nervous about leaving Cornwall. I've not been anywhere since I returned last August with Jade and after what I went through back then, I had vowed never to leave it again. Would I have a panic-attack crossing the Tamar Bridge? Well I didn't. I guess it was reassuring in some ways as it was a dry run of this weekend's travels to the Stitching Retreat Weekend in Milton Keynes. I was getting nervous about being so far away from home and leaving Jade even though it was only for 2/3 days.

I arrived at Exeter about 8:30 pm and dropped off my bag at the hotel. Well, I say Hotel, it was only a B&B in reality but it was clean and warm and that's just about all you need for an overnight stay. I went into the town centre of Exeter to find something to eat. I spotted a Burger King and headed to it (my nearest Burger King in Penzance is 20 miles away in Truro) and was most disconcerted to find that it had closed over 2 hours ago. Similarly I missed the closing of Macdonalds by 10 minutes. I walked past a closed M&S and made lost puppy noises because I couldn't go in and buy anything as it was shut (again, the nearest Marks and Spencers to Penzance is Truro!).

In the end I gave up and walked back to the hotel, stopping at the fish and chip shop on the corner and getting a portion of overcooked plaice and undercooked chips. Hmmmm not that appetising - but I had no choice. I decided to look forward to my breakfast instead.

The next morning, I got up and went down to breakfast and found that I wasn't really hungry!! What a shame. I consoled myself by reading the paper instead. At 9:10 I got a taxi to the Buckerell Lodge where the training was being held. I was really shocked by the amount of traffic in Exeter. The traffic jams, the queues..... the night before I was standing at a pedestrian crossing on a corner waiting to cross the road and this guy on a bicycle nearly knocked me over! Can 11 months of being in Cornwall change me so much that I view a big city with the eyes of a country bumpkin?

The training course was good. It was definitely worth me attending, I learned what I was doing wrong with our database software, and also more importantly how to fix my errors. I also learned how the reporting side of it works. Which will be very useful.

The course finished really early, so I went back to Exeter St David's Station to get the train back. I did toy with the idea of doing a little shopping (Marks and Spencers was still calling to me), but I had a heavy overnight bag to lug around the town center, and there was no left luggace facility at Exeter Station. So I got my stitching out to while away the hour till the next train. The next train only went as far as Plymouth, so I caught that and again was faced with another hours wait to get the train back to Penzance. I walked outside Plymouth Station to see if there was any shops or any pubs worth exploring, but all there seemed to be within easy reach was a bus station and taxi rank, so I gave up and went back and sat in the Station Buffet for the next hour. One of the Buffet staff admired the stitching that I was doing (Sparkling Waters).

The train came on time and I got on the crowded commuter train back to Penzance. I stitched Sparkling Waters all the way home.

Here's the progress I made on it:

Click the Image (left) to View it properly in my Webshots

The train soon emptied enough to give me elbow room. That's the good thing about living all the way down at the ass end of nowhere in Penzance, you know that practically everyone is going to get off the train before you. I do think that it is a relaxing journey, though. I got home about 7:00.