Coping well ...

Silly title, really - but there was such a splendour of copes on display at the celebration Evensong marking 140 years of the Cathedral of The Isles that I couldn't resist it.

As well as other visiting clergy (and the Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire etc) we had the former Primus, the RC Bishop of Galloway and the Provost of St Mary's Glasgow, as well as more customary clerics all togged out in their finery for an occasion that filled the tiny cathedral all the way to a clutch of visiting teenagers who might have come in out of the rain but stayed to wonder. (I may be maligning them - who knows?)

It occurred to me halfway through the intensely choral service that it must be a good 43 years since my first such experience in this place, when I felt like an extra in a Fellini film. A lifetime, really ...

In a bizarre footnote, I can reveal that the current Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church turned up at lunch before the service - but he was wearing shorts and a cycling helmet and declined to join the procession.