The organist librarian

Mass, art at St Stephen Norbury (nice that Julie came) and voted. It is a right pain that we have to go over the hill to do so. Excellent Christmas meal at Langley Park golf club Beckenham circle most enjoyable. What a depressing prospect. Brexit and Boris. Climate change not addressed. We need proportional representation. One Green MP is not enough and so few Lib Dems. Scotland demanding to break away. The editors of newspapers who advocated Brexit have done this to our country. Who will do the jobs when so many leave? The Tories care only about money. At least Corbyn stuck to his principles even if some of them were wrong. Mass, a delightful lunch at Rosemary's and the house is transformed. Sang with Welcome choir at Lmp concert at St John's. It was fun!  A varied programme with good soloists. 

To Mass.Henry came and was very relaxed. Dennis came with us and Louise was there also Hyacinth and Jim and Sonia.  A horrid day for the funeral of our neighbour John Ennor aged 84. Rain at the graveside. Visited Rosemary Callan and the house is being transformed.

I have an infection in right ear so operating on one ear for a month and right in the middle of the Proms! I was lucky to see Dr Ojo and he will remove mole on my arm. I got the ear drops. Delightful lunch at Rosemary Callan's. Miss Lyn. She has great plans for the house. The talk was on writing about London. Strange that South London is so neglected by authors. Sad that so many 20 year olds are leaving the city. I commented that Dad said you could tell a Londoner as they were know it alls. Not so true I think now. It is more that Londoners are mostly from somewhere else. A superb concert BBC Scottish and Manze London symphonies of Haydn and RVW. Lovely to have Haydn and very atmospheric and NO applause between movements!!

Interesting to take part in auditions for new director at St John's. Both good but the second was more challenging and flamboyant. William McVicker very good, Kathie not there, To West Norwood to park and cappuccino at Cafe Cappadocia. Excellent lunch to celebrate Dennis's 40th. Claire and Rosemary came. Over an hour before food came. I had steak and sticky toffee pudding. We went to cathedral. Christ the King and 2 servers got badges Paul in good mood. Fr John. Cardinal Vaughan school sang Mozart and Viadana. To Glyn close for cake and Claire still there. Henry to bed. Programme on bridges. 

Swam 20 - chatted to Dave Cameron. The music group from Thornton Heath plays for Mass at Brixton prison every second week! He said Julie Henry was unwell. He had not heard much of Catenians. Also spoke to the little ginger lady - she is a Pentecostalist and worked at Lloyds bank at the Olympic village. Reading for course and set up charity standing orders. Claire came to get empty jars. Listened to evensong by Clare College from Aldeburgh parish church featuring Britten and Holst. To Rosemary and Lyn's for a very nice meal with champagne - fish pie. Both Lyn and I dropped off after the meal while Liz was showing ordination photos! They will be off to Sydney very soon. Liz gave me the book of the history of Belmont Abbey and Rosemary gave back the Minotaur programme.

Decided to go via East Croydon. Announcement "we are sorry for the delay" became "we are very sorry" then "we are extremely sorry". No Mr Announcer you are not sorry at all! Got to mosaic at 10.30 and everyone asked about India. We are doing a course on Roman mosaic styles using new glass cutters which I bought. Pity wanted to work on the 2 mosaics as the one for Alan and Ivor fell out of the frame and needs attention badly and regrouting. Linda is in Amsterdam next week. 4 at tai chi and chatted to Tony about Giresh and Kerala. To Balham library to get reserved book and took some photos of the melting snow in the sunshine. To Sainsburys to get kettle descaler and cookies! Cleared 4 inches of snow off the car. To Covent Garden on train and got there early so bought a programme. Rosemary arrived around 7 p.m. A very dramatic performance with some brilliant singing especially Sir John Tomlinson. Birtwistle's music is often affecting. I thought the blood...

At Coulsdon we sang O taste and see by Vaughan Williams an exquisite miniature written for the Queen's coronation in 1953. Hymns included "O thou who at thy Eucharist didst pray" "I come with joy" and "The God of Abram praise" and I played "Von himmel hoch" by Pachelbel. Home for a quick lunch and to British Museum for the community preview of Hajj exhibition - fascinating and 5 of the group came. Met Louise and Bruce for tea which was a nice surprise. Lovely dinner at Rosemary and Lynn's/

Saturday another glorious day. To Christian Education centre Tooting Bec for course on "Meeting God in friend and stranger". Jon Dal Din, Rosemary and Fr David Crawley and Maureen Liddy were there. Fr Michael was excellent but had to leave at lunch which was provided. Fr Martin's presentation was dull after lunch and hard to keep awake. Told Fr Michael I was looking forward to Heythrop and several people there had done the course. To Balham library to return books = Tracy and Fiona say morale is low as cuts are going ahead. To Battersea Park for picnic and then to Mass with Fr Michael Durand speeding through it.

To Coulsdon where it seems the scaffolding fence is only held by a tie so we do have access to the vestry door! Liz late back from M & S. To St John's for Adrian's recital - 35 there. Centenaries Purcell, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn 6, Leighton Fanfare, Sidney Campbell Canterbury Improvisation No.2, Basil Harwood Paean - a good programme. At evensong we sang Stanford in A and Vaughan Williams Let all the world. Kit played Air of Wesley at the end. Adrian told story about Campbell and Gerald Knight. GHK commented on a hood "synthetic nylon" to which Campbell retorted "synthetic doctorate"! Watched Antiques roadshow and history of Christianity part 3 about the Orthodox church (gorgeous vestments and icons and churches) and Embarassing old bodies. Monday to BDT - some discussion about Balham as MR is retiring end of January. To Rosemary and Lyn's for a delightful dinner where we were joined by Louise and Tom. Bruce came for funeral tomorrow.

Tuesday last day at work before holidays so did lots of clearing up and preparations to make Calix's life as easy as possible. Arrived early at Chiswick for the wedding rehearsal. Lyn and Rosemary came too. Nice to meet Mark the best man. Fr Jim very friendly. I acted as the celebrant and took them through the vows and we worked out where everyone will stand. The church is lovely and it was very touching listening to them. They clearly love each other very much! We went to the local pub for a Guinness and I had steak and Guinness pie. Louise has everything organised. We dropped them off and stayed at the Travelodge on the M4. This was fine but on the wrong side of the road so we had to return to the Chiswick roundabout in the morning to get to Heathrow! We rose at 5.45 but in fact Ann's flight was early so she was waiting for us! Lovely to see her again and we drove home via Josie's! Skyped Paul. Listened and recorded Mum's tapes about her life. Watched the Salonen prom...