Elephantine paving slabs

We paid one of what have become our rare visits to the Western Regional Capital this week (see, for example, April 14th, 2009 in the other place) and were pleased to find that the number, size and configuration of the traffic lights guarding the eastern exits were fully up to the standard expected of a regional capital.

Notwithstanding, we made it home in what for me is the record time of 3 hours and 25 minutes, this including a short break for coffee or tea according to taste.

The return trip was also notable for the unusually large number of bad tempered or aggressive drivers encountered, maybe as many as five. Not all young men. Perhaps it was the rain wot dun it.

During our visit (on which more to follow) we discovered that the regional capital also boasts unusual paving slabs, at least in Queen Street. Whacking great granite things of all shapes and sizes: it seems unlikely that the weights & measures people were ever allowed anywhere near their installation, never mind their colleagues from Brussels. One of the the stones must have been six feet by one foot, and maybe of a corresponding thickness. We wondered where the stones came from and where they were cut up. Were they Dartmoor granite? Were they shipped to Exeter as lumps and sawn up into manageable sizes on site? Did they come in on barges up the ship canal, to be hauled up the hill to Queen Street by a large gang of convicts, whipped on by local ne'er-do-wells?