The first time ...

The lovely Spring weather is leaving us again after a couple of days, and today was more or less bleak, with a chilly wind and grey sky until a brief, transient spell of brightness in the late afternoon. Now, at midnight, it's raining. 

It's been a strange day, really. If you're heavily involved in a church like ours, Holy Week is a strange week, drawing you in with increasing intensity as the week goes on. In past years, the two of us have spent three nights from Palm Sunday at the Cathedral of The Isles, living in the College and singing Evensong in the cathedral from Monday-Wednesday, returning to our own church for the Triduum, the three special days which end the week. The intervention of Covid, and the current ill-health of our tenor, the organist there, has meant that we've not been able to do this, for some years, so here we are at home, and were involved in this evening's Evensong in our own church. 

It's indicative of the way in which our day was sort of taken up with the anticipation of this that all I can actually say I did was to go out to post a letter and put in a prescription request. (I bought a packet of seeds when really I wanted compost; it was too heavy for me to carry it home.) I ordered a present online, and did some Italian, and made an early dinner. And then it was time to go to church ...

It was a joint service, so there were people there from the local Church of Scotland congregations, and Roman Catholics from St Mun's. There were three of us singing as a choir for the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis and the psalm, all to plainsong, and we led the congregation in the responses, a few of which are in the left hand photo above. It came as quite a shock to hear for the first time the words which have always been present in the liturgy: God Save the King - I nearly forgot to come in with the next bit.  The last hymn was especially enthusiastically sung; I found out later that it was because the current Church of Scotland hymnal sets it to what a friend called "the wrong tune" and they were all giving it laldy because they were so glad to sing it again.

We came home about 8pm and rounded off the evening with online Compline at 9. And now it's midnight again. I took it very slowly this morning; I think I'll be doing the same again ramorra.

Second part of the collage is the corner of the church after the service as the evening darkened around us. It's a pity you can't hear the blackbird singing ...