The school Mass yesterday went very well from the musical point of view. There was a visiting priest from the Legionaries of Christ whose homily was problematic, at one point chastising his father for being unkind and lacking the will-power to give up smoking despite cancer scares which, he determined were sent by God. What do intelligent adults, let alone 600 children, make of that?

Much of the rest of the day was spent in ensuring that the musicians who would cover me while I was in UK would have as few issues as possible. It is always easier to do the job oneself but since I have to be back in the UK there was no alternative.

I visited the church during the afternoon and discovered a woman playing the piano. She had not sought permission but that didn’t seem to bother her! She could play and sing and clearly had a history as a cover musician in many churches. She was a troubled soul and poured out much of it within minutes of meeting me!

The Lent Gathering was down in numbers apparently. I didn’t manage to attend much except the opening Lenten meal. I had to play for the closing worship, a benediction service in the church. The air around the organ reeked. Someone advised that something had probably crawled into the organ pit and died! Ugh!

Choir practice was good and I managed to get through the material for the next two Sundays as next week I would be in UK for the practice.

I awoke this morning after a good sleep eventually. In fact a mighty wind had picked up in the Bay and my bedroom was creaking. This was solved by the insertion of ear-plugs!

So far this morning I have checked in for my flights to UK later today, renewed my Norton security for the computer, ordered a new laptop battery and am slowly setting about packing. I suspect that at some stage there will be a haircut, some ironing and more packing and then a last minute panic!

At 3pm I visit the dentist for the fitting of a partial tooth replacement and a CT scan. then it’s off to a choir member’s house where I will leave my car and get a lift to the airport for the flight for niece Emily’s funeral on Monday.

Tally Ho