Don’t know

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Don’t know if you’ll be able to see the detail of the man climbing around the spokes of this enormous great wheel.

I wouldn’t have seen him at all if I hadn’t left my security pass in my car and had to go back to pick it up, wasting a further ten minutes before matins at 1045. I’ve already lost plenty of time to getting lost, and parking in the first available space which is miles in the wrong direction, and having had to stop to buy chocolate in order to have the right number of pound coins to park.

I left in plenty of time.

It’s going to be a hectic day: three services, with varying degrees of loud and complicated music. That should be done by 6pm, at which point I have to drive the 150 miles to Hereford ready to be able to sign on at the Three Choirs bright and early tomorrow.

Don’t know

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Don’t know if you’ll be able to see the detail of the man climbing around the spokes of this enormous great wheel.

I wouldn’t have seen him at all if I hadn’t left my security pass in my car and had to go back to pick it up, wasting a further ten minutes before matins at 1045. I’ve already lost plenty of time to getting lost, and parking in the first available space which is miles in the wrong direction, and having had to stop to buy chocolate in order to have the right number of pound coins to park.

I left in plenty of time.

It’s going to be a hectic day: three services, with varying degrees of loud and complicated music. That should be done by 6pm, at which point I have to drive the 150 miles to Hereford ready to be able to sign on at the Three Choirs bright and early tomorrow.

Welcome

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

welcome to my humble home. I’ve saved you the best dragonfly.

Other cat-at-castle pics here. And a bit of an explanation here.

The Dungeon

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

The Dungeon is not the best reheasal room we’ve ever had. It’s a little dark. I suppose if they don’t think we’re good enough, it’s much easier to stop us getting into the chapel from here.

Tormenting the Guard

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Yesterday, I saw a toddler run into the sentry box, and clutch the soldier’s trousers while he stood stock still. Everyone gets a quick photo. But how good a sentry can he be if he really doesn’t react to his surroundings? If he came under attack, would he still just stand there?

Royal Tat

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

A collection of “God Save The Queen” tshirts, aprons, cushions and pillows.

Further fantasies

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Every year on this singing tour I evolve a slightly new fantasy along the lines of what I’ll do “When I grow up”. There are, relative to the population as a whole, few people who know how to sing choral evensong. And there are a couple of hundred paid jobs in cathedrals, chapels and choral foundations up and down the land. I could sing for a living. I’d need to do rather a lot of work to get myself up to scratch musically speaking, but the jobs often come with accommodation. In return, you’d need to sing, what, 9 services a week in term time? Maybe I should keep an eye on the ads in the Church Times. Or maybe I could seek work as a verger – keeping clergy organised, and running a cathedral. Tend to be ex-choristers, ex-public schoolboys and ex-servicemen, and I don’t qualify!

The Cat of the Lay-Clerk of the Chapel of St George

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Chapel staff, including the professional choir and vergers, get gorgeous if small housing within the walls of Windsor Castle. And some of them have cats: we’ve seen at least four various different cats lording it over the lawn in front of the houses. And on our way to the dungeon where we are rehearsing and robing, one of the 16th century windows has been pushed wide open and a new pane of glass rigged inside. The new pane is equipped with a catflap.

And we’re flagging a bit.  It’s a different feel this year: we’re about two thirds the choir we were last year in St Pauls.  The lower numbers give us a more focussed feel, and are actually appropriate for the smaller chapel.  But because of the lower numbers, we’re tackling a much easier programme of singing this year, with no music we’ve not sung before, and no major works.  And — thank goodness — very little Howells.
We have apparently been invited back to St Paul’s for a year in the future.  We’re in Hereford next year, which I’m looking forward to.  Durham and Salisbury feature.  We have tour dates set til 2010, and lots of suggestions to take us beyond that: we want to do Liverpool and Truro.

The car is returned to me.  But I think now the headlights have gone which meant I had to drive home on foglights last night. The manual has strictures on not trying to replace the headlights yourself.

My parents were here on Monday evening to hear the Chiropodist’s Anthem, How Beautiful Upon the Mountain Are the Feet (of them that bringeth glad tidings and publisheth peaceth.)