Skip to main content

Halfway Home

Dear Reader

We are halfway home in terms of time and more than half way in flying distance.

The Gang of Twenty (Letters A-T for Sound Off) left Rome yesterday lunchtime and arrived in Kuala Lumpur early this morning KL time. Our rooms in the Pan Pacific Hotel were not available so we were offered complimentary breakfast. What a spread! Traditional English, Indian and Chinese Malay, Continental, fresh fruit etc etc. Gradually over the next couple of hours the rooms became available, and we are all installed now for our rest before finishing our journey home. The swimming pool is proving popular and I may even venture poolwards in a minute as it is quite beautiful.

Anyway, we get free, if not slow, internet, so I will upload the photos John Campbell gave me from the Vatican event. Thanks John.

Concert at St Paul Outside the Walls

Lining up at our accommodation

Coming along our street


Beside the Vatican Walls

Processing in the Piazza


Rehearsing O Bone Jesu

Matilda Moment

More Matilda

Yet more Matilda

Heading through security

Making our way through the Basilica

After the service

Enough with the photos already!



Ciao Lovelies!

Cxxx

PS: the pool was lovely.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Big One, St Paul’s

  Dear Reader Today was the Big Event of tour. St Paul’s Cathedral, London. If you are observant, you will notice my absence from the photo above, along with several of my colleagues. Sadly, this happened.  After nearly four years and six vaccinations I finally succumbed to the dreaded Covid. At the worst possible time. My multiple vax status has meant I only feel a bit rotten, like a cold, but I do feel sad to have missed the day. And to miss Windsor tomorrow. I was grateful for the considered medical advice provided by Dr Ritesh, father of one of the trebles, who also updated my supply of paracetamol and ibuprofen.  So I am relying on others for the report about this special day.  The good bits started with four of the young Lay Clerks heading to St Paul’s for singing lessons with my friend Patrick Craig, who is an Alto Lay Vicar at St Paul. In have yet to hear from Nicholas, Marco, Charlie or James, but Patrick was very complimentary about their singing. This is w...

Worcester - that’s a wrap

  Dear Reader Well, that’s a wrap. After a free morning to shop, skate, scoff scones or the like, we boarded the coach to Worcester. Annabel Crompton continued the proud tradition set by her late father, the beloved Prof David Thomas, and shared history and interesting information about the Cathedral, always including the South Australian connections. We had a very warm welcome from the Interim Dean, Canon Stephen, and Anita the Virger. On the musical menu was Hunt Versicles and Responses, Howells in G Canticles and Be Present O Merciful God  by Australian composer, Owen Elsley. I thought the Anthem went particularly well. We sang two psalms, 131 to a Willcocks chant and 132 to a chant by a random (will update later). Turns out the second chant was by Richard Massey. David played a beautiful postlude, Rhapsody by Daniel Cook (b1979). When we arrived in Worcester it lived up to the reputation England has for wet and rather miserable weather, so we headed straight into the build...

Trees

Dear Reader There is something beautiful about trees in the snow. My initial feeling was that every photograph looked the same. Tall, straight trees with snow on them. Was there any point in taking more than one? But when I took the time to look more closely I noticed the differences. The beautiful and important differences.  Most of them are straight and tall, but some are not.  Some are bent, some are incomplete, as they have been cut down or damaged by the weather in some way. Yet they remain as a reminder of what has been. I wish I had thought to take more photographs of these. Some are evergreen, which means their strong, ever present branches and leaves bear a heavy weight of snow. I think they are probably pine trees, and they remain constant throughout the year. Some are deciduous, so their branches hold a lighter weight of snow and their twigs are more apparent. They change with the seasons, but return again each year.  And...