Favourite Music

Handel famously composed the Messiah in 24 days. I was lucky enough to be taught to sing it at St Ronan's and still love to hear it. Click here to hear the Hallelujah Chorus from a recent Drapers' City Service and the heading for the first of a complete version on YouTube (it is recorded in seven parts)

Favourite Poetry

The Embankment

(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night)

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth's the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883 – 1917)

The Royal Hospital Chelsea

The Royal Hospital was founded by Charles II in 1682 for the 'succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war' - and continues to provide care and accomodation for retired servicemen today. A new building - the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary - has been erected next to the original Wren buildings and will be completed in 2009.

Click the heading for some more photos. Having become a Friend, we should be allowed inside soon!

The Drapers' New Year's Service

The Drapers' Livery Company holds an annual City New Year's service at their church, St Michael's, Cornhill every January, The Service was taken by the Rev Dr Peter Mullen and the sermon by The Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester

Hymns and anthems on this occasion included 'I Vow to Thee My Country' and 'Jerusalem'. This year the choir also sang the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

This was one of several beautiful services I have attended recently. Some others are here

The Book of Kells

The Book of Kells has been kept at the astonishing library at Trinity College, Dublin since 1661. It is a beautiful illuminated 9th Century manuscript of the four new testament gospels created either at Kells Abbey - or possibly on Iona and taken to Kells to avoid the repeated depradations of the Vikings.

Click the heading for some more photo of Trinity College, the library and the illuminated manuscripts kept there

Ireland

Click the photos for a better view and the heading for more photos of Lisheen Castle
A lovely week with the family over New Year at Lisheen Castle in Tipperary

Favourite Architecture

Click the heading to see more photos of the terraces
The most perfect architecture in London is found on the east side of Regent's Park where the Nash terraces run uninterrupted up the east side of the park from the Marylebone Rd to Primrose Hill

Camden Market

Camden Market is a mecca for young people looking for funky fashion, cheap food and artistic inspiration.Click the heading for some more photos

Litchfield at Christmas

There was standing room only at the little church of St John the Less at Litchfield for the service on Christmas morning.
Carols sung including 'In the Bleak Midwinter', 'Of the Father's Love Begotten' and 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.

Click the heading for some more photos of the Litchfield service

Christmas Poetry

Christmas 1963 (or 2008?)

Because we wanted much that year and had little.
Because the winter phone for days stayed silent
that would call our father back to work,
and he kept silent too with our mother,
fearfully proud before us.

Because I was young that morning in gray light untouched on the rug
and our gifts were so few, propped along the furniture, for a second
my heart fell, then saw how large they made the spaces between them
to take the place of less.

Because the curtained sun rose brightly on our discarded paper and the things
themselves, these forty years, have grown too small to see,
the emptiness measured out remains the gift,
fills the whole room now,
that whole year out across the snowy lawn.
Because a drop of shame burned quietly in the province of love.
Because we had little that year and were given much.

Joseph Enzweiler, from The Man Who Ordered Perch