Happy New Year!

A day late maybe, but as this is the first entry, still justified methinks. In the month plus since I last managed to write anything here, I've recovered most of the work, photos, music and other files which were almost disastrously lost after what I now call the great crash.

Unfortunately all my work for the LMS Ushaw Conference bit the proverbial dust, so I've had to recreate all the planned services, which for added insurance purposes, I've now uploaded to my webspace! This is provisional at the moment, as some things may change, but the work is done so any minor alterations will be relatively easy. 'Tis a great relief to be at this stage now because last year I beat the publishing deadline for the booklet by only two days....

I have a large chunk of spare time now which I can devote to other things before I get around to preparing full music folders for the resident singers. We hope to have two full scale polyphonic Masses this year, and even polyphony [motets] during the chant Masses too. It promises to be magnificent!

So, I now plan to spend a bit more time reading [I have a pile of books, which at this rate will take me a decade to get through!], writing here more often & indulging in taking more photographs - not necessarily of church events, but I've just noticed that my set from St Alphonsus' North Ormesby have been published on their new website. Do go and take a look. Fr Bill Charlton is a wonderful priest who deserves all the support we can possibly give him.

I had hoped to be there for Midnight Mass, but unfortunately fog descended in the Vale of York, so it was to my intense frustration, but common sense prevailed - a 100 mile round trip at night in freezing fog is not to be recommended!

The Rudgates were busy just before Christmas though at our now Annual Carol Service. We did have a group photo taken beforehand, but I've yet to receive this from the photographer, so you''ll just have to make do with my mobile snapshot just before the service started of the East End.

It was, another huge success, and has given us the nice headache of "how do we follow that?" Well, I've already got some wonderful pieces for Next Year....

The full choir now has some respite between now and April, when we hope to persuade as many as possible to come and sing Victoria's glorious Requiem for 6 voices in the equally glorious St Cuthbert's chapel at Ushaw. It's a working day fo most people, and as the Mass is scheduled for 11.00am it means, taking a day's holiday. I'm pushing it like mad at the moment in the hope that we can get the required quorum. If the worst comes to the worst, we've always got the chant Requiem, but the Victoria would be just stunning in that location.

However, that said, we are trying to get a full choral Mass in York for the Chair of Peter on 22nd Feb. Depending on the church, & the availability of people it may or may not happen as it's a Monday evening & we'd be relying on quite a few people - not least our choral Director travelling many miles to York & back home again before work the following day. Watch this space..

Chant-wise Compline resumes on 8th January followed by Sunday Vespers on the 10th. Before then, I'm switching calendars to celebrate with the Ukrainians on the 7th, so if you use the Julian Calendar instead of the Gregorian, Happy Christmas for Thursday!