As Royal news is a bit sparse this weekend, I thought I’d be a bit self-indulgent and show you a few photos of Royal Anecdotes’ new environment at Exeter’s Quay. The weather is gloriously spring-like at present, so I spent the morning wandering along the river and canal snapping the views.

Our old Customs House with two cannons guarding it

The Customs House was built in 1661 and is the oldest brick building in Exeter. It was used by Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise as recently as 1989. Its magnificent interior reflects the wealth of the West Country’s wool trade at the time it was built.

View across the canal to the bridge and the 11th-century Cathedral

There’s an almost holiday resort atmosphere here at the Quay right now with people sitting out for lunch at the many pubs and restaurants. It can’t surely be mid-February? — but it is.

Regency view across the river

Now here’s a perfect cluster of Regency buildings, straight out of Jane Austen. Apart from the car and the couple in fluorescent yellow togs, it could be 200 years ago.

A pair of medieval houses, now used for commercial purposes

As much of old Exeter was destroyed by bombing in World War 2, it remains a miracle that so much from the medieval and Elizabethan periods remains standing.

More genuine Royal anecdotes on Monday.

Click on the Flickr logo in the sidebar for more Exeter photos. Click on the thumbnails for more detailed shots.

Yesterday, the Queen was presented with an unusual gift — a pair of ripe bananas.

Betty Taylor explained that back in 1943, when bananas were unknown in Britain due to wartime restrictions, the Queen Mother arrived at the hospital where Betty was recovering from shrapnel wounds and gave her a brace of bananas.

The four-year-old was delighted with the unusual present and, yesterday, 65 years on, repaid the kindness by returning the favour to her daughter.

The Queen received them with her customary gracious manner, but was said to be a little dubious about the bananas’ state of advanced ripeness.

No doubt the corgies had a treat with their evening meal.

Royal Anecdotes moving
Royal Anecdotes will be moving home and office next weekend. There will be an inevitable hiatus in posting from Friday (Feb 1) through Monday, depending on how quickly we can get the communication lines up and running. The comments section will, of course, be open as usual.

We are moving to the beautiful Quay district of Exeter, with a much larger office and extended space all round.

The Quay district at Exeter’s Watergate

Business as usual until Friday.

It’s rather confusing having a grandson of the Queen with no title. So does Peter Phillips’ newly-announced nuptials to Canadian Autumn Kelly count as a Royal wedding?

Well, our Texan Chapter has decided it is. So, to avoid having the Texas Rangers beating on our door, we are pleased to treat it as a Royal occasion. A little extra bunting please.

Peter, 29, met Montreal-born Autumn at the Canadian Grand Prix, where he was working as sponsorship manager for the Williams Formula One team. She has been with him for four years, now sharing a cottage on Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire.

Autumn grew up in Montreal with her mother Kay and stepfather Ron Magas, an airline pilot. She attended McGill University and became a management consultant after graduating.

Peter, who was once tipped to play for Scotland at rugby union, studied at Exeter University in Devon. He now works for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Although tenth in line to the throne, he doesn’t bear a Royal title and carries out no official engagements. As I write, there are no details available for the wedding.

Royal Anecdotes sends best wishes to the both of them.

I’m getting a few emails about normal comments going into the moderation panel, so here’s a quick guide to what’s happening.

We have very strong spam comment guards as we get around 500 of them per site per day. Many of them are totally horrific, and the rest are attempts at grabbing free advertising space.

We also have “first-comment moderation”, which means the first time you comment on the site, it will be moderated. Once you get that cleared, you should get through every time unless you put in two links or more. Some words also trigger the trap.

The Royal Anecdotes site has always been a law unto itself in moderation, blocking quite ordinary comments. Gigi had one in there this morning which I’ve now released from captivity. Long comments are more likely to be blocked than shorter ones.

We normally look at the moderation panel around 5 to 6 times a day, so they will pop out at some time. If you’re commenting in the U.S. in the evening, or in Australia, you will have to wait till the sun comes up over Devon, England for its release.

Just think of Paris Hilton and wait patiently.