Back in Torquay

Early one Saturday morning I convinced my sister and dad to get on a train with me. I had decided that it was time to pay Torquay a second visit. This is the beautiful view over Exe that we saw from the windows. I love the Jurassic Coast Line.

Once we arrived in Torquay, the mist had gone away and the sun was shining.

The sea

My sis

 Dad. Who else.

 Kina & I

After a while we started to walk towards the quay.

Since Torquay is one of the old riviera towns it's filled with retired people and dogs. A splendid combination! Here's two dogs enjoying themselves in the water.

Some more fauna, though inside a park. Penguins ♥.   

After walking around the quay and admiring penguins from afar, we decided that it was time for some fish and chips!

We actually ended up on a pub from the 1540s. A pretty nice hole in the wall.

After lunch we went around for a bit, exploring town etc. Kina and I told our father about the popular Facebook group in Sweden that claims that horses doesn't exist and that they are a fruit (that doesn't exist) and how very popular (as well as hated) it has become. Genius! 

Around half four we went back to the train station. Whilst we were waiting for the train to arrive, one santa after another began popping up outside Grand Hotel. I looked so strange but I suspect they were taking a photo or something. Anyway, we enjoyed staring at them. 

Later during the evening we went out for dinner and then we went back to the hotel. In spite of our fathers attempts to make my sister and me go out that night, we were quite satisfied with having a ice cream and chocolate desert in bed so that's were we ended up, watching Pretty Woman and just hanging out. Very nice and just what we needed. The day after we walked around in town a bit and then they left me to go to the airport. Great visit!

Visitors!

The last weekend in November, my father and sister came to visit. It was quite cold, and this blue mist above embraced the city. Since I wanted them to grasp (to some extent at least) what it is like studying at Exeter Uni, I took them up Cardiac Hill.

 I showed them some student accommodations (and palm trees!). 

 Walking towards uni, we took my favourite path through the park outside Reed Hall.

 Sister & father.

 Reed Hall

 One of the many squirrels living on campus.

 Next step on my guided tour was the Imperial. Inevitable visit, of course.

Classic Burger & Ale. 

 After lunch we started to walk towards the quay. 

And after we'd spent some time looking at the extremely large amount of swans living in the quay area, we started to walk towards town again.

Of course, we stopped along the way to reed about this old bridge, The Exe Bridge. In the background you can see St Edmunds tower as well.

Once we've reached the city center again we took a look inside Exeter Cathedral. A very nice old man that was working as a guide in the cathedral started to follow us around after a while and began to pop into our conversations, giving us some info about this majestic building. We decided that we might as well let him guide us around and so he did. It seems that his speciality was stones, because I've never heard so much about different stones used in a building process. It was a bit weird, but of course funny and interesting as well. There's something genuinely nice about people that love what they are doing and it always shows.

There was a christmas market going on outside the cathedral, which we passed on our way to cream tea at Tea on the Green.

After some tea we went back to their hotel for a while before going out to dinner. Great first day!

Calender girls

One friday about a month ago, Alex and I went up quite early (not that early really but it sounds better and it looks like it's early on the picture above)  to take some photos that were  to be part of a secret calender for our american KES friend Rakeem that was forced to leave England on a rather short notice (fortunately  he was able to return later). This is what it looked like!

 Here we've got Alex, born i September, just like me.

She found a heart shaped leave. We agreed it suited the situation very well!

 Here we both are, preparing for the camera to start shooting...

... which it had already start doing, of course

 We tried some different ideas and poses...

... like throwing leaves and shaping hearts.

 This  heart-picture was the one that we eventually picked.

 We also tried some different locations, although all in Cardiac Hill. I don't think Cardiac Hill has ever really looked as beautiful as through these pictures!

We realised that it's quite hard making leave throwing look natural. That's a lesson learned. However, the colours are really nice so I'm willing to overlook that sad fact.

 Mememe.

And then a nice, last photo taken from above with the tree as photographer. Good job, mr Tree I'd say! 

Thanks Alex for such a nice hour in the November (!) sun!