It's been almost a week now since I returned from holiday. I turned the invitation to sing for Brother Lawrence Lew's Solemn Profession into an even greater opportunity for me to get a few days away and even spend some time in France and quick visit to London before heading back to York.
I won't bore you with details, suffice to say that the week started in Oxford and ended with an Extraordinary Form Mass at the church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen. Some of you may already know the Parish Priest. :-) If you want to experience a sung EF Mass in a normal parish setting, then I strongly recommend that you visit at least once! It was a pleasure to meet Mac again, who I hadn't seen since the Pontifical High Mass at Westminster Cathedral last year. It was also wonderful to meet so many others including Patricius, whose blog Singulare Ingenium is now well and truly bookmarked!
Between Oxford & Blackfen, I managed to spend some time in Kent, replenishing my stock of Real Cider with some excellent stuff from Badgers Hill Farm which I cannot recommend highly enough. I've been here once before and the quality is as good as ever. I also took the opportunity to do a little Channel Hopping over to France, where I visited Lille [where I sang whilst in Leeds Cathedral Choir] and brought back copious amounts of Rosé wine, which even accounting for the not so favourable exchange rate, was still a bargain due to the fact that French duty on alcohol is so much less than ours is here in the UK.... I almost ended up stranded in Belgium at one point due to misreading my French railway timetable, but that's another story!
All in all, a good trip. Photos can be seen here.
The Hours of Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France
10 hours ago
3 comments:
It was, indeed, a real pleasure to meet up again, Mike, and I do hope you enjoyed our little Mass! Obviously the music was not up to Rudgate Singer standards, but I think we acquitted ourselves reasonably well! And hopefully the drinks after made up for it!!
I wasn't expecting Rudgate Singers standards. :-) That's the kind of service that as the good Cardinal said last year, "every church" should have!
The drinks were also very welcome! I must say, it's a very long time since I've been to a parish church with it's own club. I can't think of any left in Yorkshire...
I've just bookmarked Leutgeb's Blog too. I hadn't realised Blackfen was such a Blogging Hotspot!
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