Musical adventure

Yesterday, I had an email from Andrea Brown confirming that a group of students from the Royal Welsh College would come and sing a Byrd four part Mass and a motet at our All Saints' Sunday Mass on the weekend,  in response to a proposal I put to her recently. It's a challenge for one of their conducting students who is Chinese and unfamiliar with Christian liturgy, but keen nevertheless to experience what may normally be performed at a concert in the setting for which it was written. 

I found a suitable copy of the liturgical text and annotated it to indicate where each piece of music comes. Hopefully there'll be a chance for a face to face briefing before the pre-service rehearsal happens. Clare and Ann left me and walked east along the coast path. Later I caught up with them on the headland overlooking the harbour, and we went for a cup of tea in the East Quay arts centre below.

Kath arrived at six after spending the weekend with Owain and then driving down from Bath, where they'd spent the afternoon enjoying the spa waters. She's going to be with us until Thursday, as some film extra work she was recruited for failed to materialise for logistic reasons. The four of us had a lovely evening, eating and catching up, as Ann and Kath haven't seen each other since well before the pandemic.

After breakfast this morning, I drove Ann to Taunton Station for her 10h40 train back to Felixstowe. I was pleased to find my way there from memory without needing to consult a map, or Google.  We received a message from her just after three to say she'd arrived home. Remarkably nowadays Taunton to Paddington takes two hours, about the same as the run to Cardiff, thanks to line electrification. Liverpool Street to Felixstowe takes three hours and is half the distance. It's very much a rural stopping train service to East Anglia.

After lunch we walked west on the coast path as far as we could, to the place where a stretch of it has been closed because of a cliff collapse. It was very hilly, and good exercise. We had tea in Watchet's East Quay arts centre again, as we did yesterday with Ann before returning for another pleasant evening of catch-up with Kath.