The organist librarian

Up at 8 am 20 minute drive to Caterham.Anne-Marie Garton celebrated and preached on gifts. I took my organ card. Played Gant Paean, Sumsion Cradle song and Noel Suisse. Packed car and drove to Acton. Prosecco! Boys busy doing amazing lego. Spoke to Dennis in Dublin.Tom excelled himself turkey, ham, pigs in blankets, all delicious. Presents and I now own a Kindle! Sleep and pudding. The Queen as wonderful as ever and featuring a young choir. Slept soundly through Strictly come dancing Christmas special! Lots of TV catching up to do. Sadly missed call from Bruce Woodhouse  Delicious late breakfast. Liz to Brook Green for servers Mass. Walk to Acton Park. Spoke to Bruce, Dennis, Henry and Ann-Marie on phone.Call the midwife excellent.Traditional carol singing and the boys joined in a bit. The highway rat and French and Saunders hilarious.TV carols from King's very good. The weather put paid to plans for the zoo and Tate modern or Waterman's. French and Saunders hi...

Delicious salmon and homemade chocolate profiteroles for Christmas Eve dinner. Carols from King's on TV was lovely and O magnum mysterium by Ola Gijola with cello is a real discovery!  Played for Mass at 11 pm. Noels and Bach In dulci. 41 there mostly strangers! 3 in choir sang On Christmas night, Salazar Gloria. Some discussion about last verse of O come all ye faithful - played it! Now listening to Brentwood cathedral on radio 4 while waiting for Bruce and Liz to emerge from St John's!  21 at 10 am Mass at St Michael's. More Noels and Andrew Gant's Paean on the morning of Christ's nativity. Went to 11.15 mass at Anerley. Good to see Fr Sunith and Fr Stuart - the latter celebrated and played the organ for 4 hymns (3 of them the same as at St Michael's!). Presents opened - very nice! Fr Leon gave me chocs and rioja!  Very impressed by singing from Brentwood, Southwark, Ripon and Bath Abbey broadcasts. Well done all!  Enormous dinner at Croydon Park hotel and st...

It turned out the C of E had a different gospel so the plan to play "Behold the lamb of God" from Messiah was shelved. Instead I played Archer on Evelyns, Thalben-Ball on St James and Walther on Jesu meine freude and to mark the start of the week of prayer for Christian unity (which wasn't mentioned) Thiman on Harwood's Thornbury. The church was perishing cold and only 14 present! After lunch I went to the annual forum of Churches together in Upper Norwood at the Salvation Army. The only song I knew was Onward Christian soldiers. It was hard to hear the comments from the floor. Met Ben Goodyear from Brixton and invited him to interfaith lunch. Watched Christmas University challenge, Still open all hours and Call the midwife.  Good evensong from Bath Abbey and broadcast from Glasgow.

By car to Clapham as trains in a mess. 6.7 miles nearly as far as Coulsdon! Arrived 9 a.m. and time to sort out things. Vicar very pleasant and is to be area Dean. People friendly. Good cantor for the psalm. Difficult to judge volume as console is under the pipes but told it was fine. Men in congregation sing well and descants in the Thorne setting! All went well and got paid as well. There are 6 applicants including youngsters and professionals so unlikely to get it! Rehearsed There is a redeemer using Bluthner piano. Did some work on Helios. To St John's for evensong - Murrill in E and Mendelssohn Verleih uns frieden. Antiques roadshow - fell asleep. Downton Abbey took a sad turn. Servants programme very interesting. Good evensong from Bath.

We enjoyed the Saturday evening recital on the Klais organ of Bath Abbey by Mark Swinton. Mark is assistant at the abbey and comes from Chester. He studied at the University of York and had lessons with John Scott Whiteley and Francis Jackson. We were able to watch him on the big screen and he introduced all the items. He began with a transcription of the Marriage of Figaro overture taken at a furious pace. Then a selection of Walton from Henry V and the glorious "Crown Imperial". Next the Scherzo in A flat by Bairstow which is almost cinema organ music! Malcolm Archer's "Bluesleeves" (Gershwin meets Henry VIII) and English country gardens in the style of Bach had us all smiling. Bizet's Caprice ws written for harmonium and was followed by Dad's favourite Tuba Tune by Norman Cocker. He was mentioned as a cathedral organist who also played in the cinema - apparently Nigel Perrin (?) also does this? Pietro Yon's Humoresque for one flute is a delight. T...