Thursday 5 January 2012

New Year's Day at St Cecilia's

After Mass on Sunday it was time for another trip to Ryde.

My young companion and I arrived in rain to find the heating snuggly on and some choccies awaiting us, artistically arranged with some fir twigs and pine cones. Unseen hands at work as ususal.

After Vespers, it was time to go to our favourite eatery for a roast dinner and then Compline.

As one who is always keen for an early night, but who on way too many occasions to count and for any number of reasons will wake up at between 2-4am for some serious hours of worrying,  Compline is the thing.   A whole office devoted to telling you to go to bed, go to sleep and not to chatter - probably especially internally.

You (singular, whoever you are,) will not be surprised to know that the crib in the church is particularly beautiful. There were lots of beautiful decorations and even the grill in the big parlour had fir branches and sparkly bits on it.

The next day it was time for Mass and then the lesson with Sr Bernadette. This time, where to put the accent in Latin words and why and how these work together in sentences and how you can see that the accent may have shifted over time by looking at the chant.

We also got to sing most of the Propers for Epiphany, which should prove useful later in the week, when the others join me in Blackfen.

As usual, the weather on Monday was perfect and quite the best you could hope for in early Jan, so as the light failed, we walked down the pier and marvelled at the colours in the sky.

The next day a big storm and Wightlink was suspended.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

were you stuck on the island?

Sounds wonderful. sorry l missed it.

leutgeb said...

No we left on Monday pm and it was Tuesday when it was a bit blowy.

Hope you are having a good hol.