an icy trip to the Abbey

I picked my way through the icy and barely thawed streets to go and sing evensong at Bath Abbey with the choir of St Peter’s Caversham, visiting for the day. As in October, we were in temporary stalls in the crossing, just west of a partition blocking off the hard-hat area that is the East End. Probably my last chance to look at the pews in the nave!

It was the coldest night of the year so far, and the glowing bars of the electric heater on one side were mainly decorative. Our service music was Radcliffe Responses, Psalm 118:1-12 (ending with 3 verses of the sort that are normally cut out!), Dyson in F and Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn. Bath Abbey discourages introits these days, and we lost our hymn (though it wasn’t a particular favourite of mine!).

We had a loyal band of supporters, and I also supplied a singer to replace someone who’d put his back out shovelling snow. I look forward to returning to the Abbey when the East end is revealed, and when the floor is replaced above the new geothermal heating.

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