Pavlov's...Organist?

Now here's a laugh for you (of the 'snigger-snort...pause..giggle...hand-over-mouth-prolonged-giggling' variety):

Picture this:

Sunday Morning Service,
usual congregation various of ages,
organ giving bother, with the lowest octave of the Swell Manual not producing any sound, all the Pedal stops singing alone and unaided, therefore having to really concentrate on the playing...

Got it?

Ok, so we get to the Recessional Voluntary and I'm so working to get a relatively decent sound out of the organ that I become lost in the playing and don't hear the Dean and several congregation members shouting at me from the end of the Nave... 

Suddenly I hear my name and stop, an announcement had been forgotten.

The point of the story is the person whose voice reached me......it was the lady who taught me in Senior Infants!

Can you believe it? Nearly fifty years old and the Bani Higgie can still stop me in my tracks...

A good thing, sez you.

Not so much, sez I.

Of Churches and Paint

On Thursday of this week the Hub had two pieces of Church work to do, and suggested I went along with him. The first concerned the Sound System in our Cathedral which has become increasingly out of kilter over the summer, part of the nave was deafening, the other was faint, and up near the front people couldn't hear properly at all.

A friend came to play with the settings, whilst the Hub read parts of the Prayer book into each microphone in turn, and yours truly ran up and down the aisles and scrambled across pews to listen from all corners! It was soon sorted, and whilst the Hub fixed the woggle on the Lectern, I examined the framed certificates and photos in the Vestry- I always learn something new!

One very large, framed, open letter to a past Rector on his transferment-ing to a new Parish is beautifully calligraphated(??) with watercolour illustrations, by hand of course. It is dated 1917.

This is the Cathedral, at the time, although it was just a Parish Church back then:

This is the interior- more of which below:

This is a medallion of 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' by WB Yeats, one of our fairly well known locals!

And just to amuse you, this is another piece of history, a list of the Rectors and Curates since 1635. I don't know whether it will enlarge for you, but if you look at the lower left side you can see where several hands have updated it using very scratchy pens!

Outside, the restoration work continues on the Tower. On Sundays we all have to dodge plaster and rubble,  flakes of paint, and  four hundred year old dust bunnies flushed out of hiding. No one wears their best coats at present, and last week I saw an eighty plus year old man using his sleeve to dust down the pew before his wife sat in! He saw me giggling and threatened to use my scarf next week!



And so to the story of the paint: With all the re-plastering and damp course work being done, the remaining  interior paint is in a shocking state. The Vestry got someone to come up with two new paint schemes and last Sunday everyone had to inspect them and note which they preferred. The two boards were propped up down by the Font, and I tell you, with all the hullabaloo and heated discussion its a wonder no one was knocked into the Font! It was nearly as exciting as the X Factor I'm a-tellin' yez!

Well the second Church job was to visit the RC Church out at Collooney as they have just finished having it painted. (We stopped for MacDonalds' on the way, and ate it on the Battlefield at Carricknagat- 1798- no corpses remain...as one does...)

It was beautifully done, lovely warm, rich reds and creamy beiges, with white on the mouldings, and looked fresh and welcoming. However the ceiling is in three sections, whereas ours is one large expanse, basilica style I think? Also our lights aren't pendants, but fixed so if we have a darkish ceiling we'd have to bring torches to read the prayers...and that's for Morning Service!

Soooooo, much discussion ensued, and the decorator has to be re-consulted!

Still, it was interesting...AND I managed to be out for three hours without panicking, and even talk coherently (I think?) to several people. No small achievement...But I didn't manage to get myself to see Youngest's Show- an Auditorium of 500 people was just too much. I feel bad for her about that, as apparently she is excellent, a total witch of a woman on stage!

Of Computer Scans (lost) and Head-Days...

Onyhoos…as the aunt from Belfast used to say…

I was over at the folks on Friday using their scanner to copy some crochet patterns before passing on my old magazines, and found I’d forgotten how to file the scans once done. As a result, I had to hunt through Dad’s documents to recover everything, and even now I know I didn’t get them all.

I did warn him to watch out for stray crochet patterns, and he promised to check any reports in progress before emailing them off…can you imagine some big corporation mogul somewhere opening the latest report on European Medical Devices and finding a couple of crochet patterns included. Would that count as a twoferone d’you suppose?


On a good head-day I can get in the car for three destinations: the folks’ house, our Church, and ‘my’ School.
On a very good day I can teach in School, and I can also do the grocery shopping. So far this year I haven’t been able to teach which is a bummer as I do so enjoy the children; all I’ve done is play the piano once a week for Assembly, and many weeks, not even that. Playing the Organ on Sundays is mostly possible as well as a lifeline, as people come round and chat to me, whereas I could not go to them.
Also on a good head-day I can go out to the garden and do stuff, or even sit outside. Unless you’ve ever had the problem of going through a door, you wouldn’t believe the sheer frustration of watching all the weeds in the flowerbeds wave and snigger at you while at the same time growing taller and taller…

Mind you, if you’d had our weather lately you’d be thinking it was still winter! Not only has it rained constantly, and sometimes hail too, but it’s a rare day when the temperature gets to even 10 degrees! I’ve had the fire in for days in a row- and this is JUNE! And to add insult to injury, the Hub’s Aunt rang and was saying that where she is (in Surrey, I think) they are about to be having a hosepipe ban! I offered to post her a bucket of water, but like all of our extended family, she refused to accept any post from yours truly here…Spoil sport…

Last Saturday...

On Saturday morning I got up to...
a take over bid of my kitchen by cinnamon men biscuits!

and an industrious Youngest...

Snow on the skylights...

...and an iced up lane way!

We made it to Church on Sunday, despite a further snowfall and below 0 temperatures, the main road was like an ice rink.

But when we got back a neighbouring farmer had been out spreading hot cinders on the hill, so we didn't have to abandon the car at the barn as we feared.

Middlest arrived in Church and came home for the day, which was lovely...well, until the snowball fight moved indoors...two shrieking teenagers, two large over-excited dogs, a number of flying snowballs, and a warm kitchen, sure make for a soggy combination!!

And a Happy Advent to you too!!

Sunny Day

Iffy Monday...

Regardez vous les page links at the top of the page! Who's a clever girl then??? And if you follow this link you too can impress your readers!!!

Now its much easier (I hope?) to check the status of the Barter/Swap, by going to the page title above, then choosing the link you want. Obviously you're all too busy to read at the moment though!

I'm skipping the Challenge Check today as I've nothing to report- wicked lazy, yeah! yeah!

For your amusement, here's the Hub impersonating Rhydian for the Charity Concert on Saturday:
And BBug impersonating Idina Menzel!
They both sang well and had great fun. The Hub had dyed his hair 'blond' (actually red!) and had to try to dye it back to its normal colour before Church- he wasn't very successful so you can imagine the ribbing he got!

And talking of Church, yesterday we had a group of visitors from TEXAS, no less!

Unfortunately the Organ was on a roll, playing by itself every opportunity it got...I was a wreck by the end of the Service, the Church wardens were mortified, and the congregation dispersed with their fingers in their ears. Something is seriously wrong with it. I offered to go up the Loft and kick some pipes but my fellow Organist suggested I take a hatchet to the 8' D Swell 'Open Diasporan' pipe and fix it permanently...
We've a Service on Wednesday as it's St Patrick's Day so I've left the Loft heater on. It'll be a real shame if I can't open all the stops Wednesday as it's the one day in the Church calendar when we can unashamedly roar all our favourite Irish Hymns and no one complains about us being Nationalist!

Nearly finished the quilt from the 'Trunk That Time Forgot' and hallelujah to THAT! One flower to quilt and the binding to attach.
Since there is hazy sunshine out and the ground is dry I intend to re-take several of my Etsy photographs as I feel they could be better. Also I discovered several items I'd forgotten to post so need to put them in the shop. Organised, amn't I?

I'm presently listening to the real Rhydian's CD and enjoying it after a week of impersonations...a powerful pair of lungs has the Hub, but he's not always in tune...ditto BBug, but she is in tune more often, and can also sing quietly! The Hub has no volume control!

Look what I found in a box last week- a SILK quilt top!

It was made from a bundle of old silk shirts I was given many years ago, but what I was thinking I have no idea, and its not backed or anything. I must have been desperate to sew and used every scrap as there are even button holes and shirt pocket flaps included!

I'm reading a fascinating book at present- 'Hospitality in Medieval Ireland 900-1500' by Catherine Marie O'Sullivan. The more I read about Medieval times here the more it seems to me that many of our social and national characteristics have their roots from then. Only the surface has changed. Perhaps its partly due to living on the west coast where things change notoriously slowly.

Challenge Check #7 and Decisions

Housekeeping first:
Since the main Giveaway winner and one of the surprise winners hasn't answered my email or notice on her blog, I'm going to divide the surprises and the main Giveaway into two parcels and post them to Andrea and Jona- I hope this is ok?
I know Andrea could do with a care package as her family has problems...actually she could probably do with knee pads for all the praying she's doing! You can see why Medieval monks and nuns had a prie-dieu always to hand..to knee, I mean!

Tomorrow I'll post the links for my Sunshine Award from Elaine, I'm thinking!

The Barter Swap doesn't seem to be working out so I'll do March, and then call it quits afterwards if it doesn't get anywhere...its was worth a try though. For March (first Wed) I'm going to put in some novels for swapping as several of you are poorly, or know people who are, they might be useful.

New post over at 'Our Inheritance', if you are interested- Hymns Ancient and Modern!

Now:
For Dottie Angel's Challenge the Hub has been raiding skips this weekend for possible firewood and sawing it up:

And I'm doing appliqué on the pink scrap yoke from yet more scraps! The stem is the belt from a long since worn out dress, goodness knows why the belt hung around for so long! I'll show you tomorrow how its looking and you can advise me on the next step; since I began in the center sashing I don't know whether to go sideways or not, you'll see.


And for the CED Challenge I'm cheating and showing you some things around the house which I especially like!
This window was salvaged from a demolished Church, and though it makes me sad to see de-consecrated Churches, and, worse, ones which are falling down, I thought that to save a piece in my home would be good. It is upstairs and overlooks the hall.

All our doors were also salvaged...from a 17C Courthouse and gaol over at Ballygawley, Co. Sligo. It has been turned into a Guesthouse, but they were not allowed to re-use the original doors for reasons of fire safety. I think this is the oldest door, the back is quite different, and every bit of wood is different. One day I'll get around to stripping it and deciding whether to repaint or not.
Also all the doors were different shapes and sizes and too short for a modern house so the carpenter added top and bottom strips. We have the handle, it just isn't attached, which goes for most doors in this house!

The kitchen, hall and passageway floors are Douglas Fir, probably imported from the States in the 1880s. The pine is so old that it acts like hardwood; it was the flooring from a Convent in Belfast built in the 1900s and demolished about 1990. A man over Lough Arrow way bought it for a conversion and then had his planning turned down so sold it to us; each plank is 1" thick! I just put linseed oil down and despite a lot of traffic and two big dogs it takes the battering well.

My sisters joke that ex-Convent flooring should overcome possible vibes from the Gaol doors...!!!

But this is what sold the place to our girls, apart form the ruins behind the house, a Fairy Fort!

Its difficult to see but the tree in the center is at the center of the Ring, the edge is sort of along the top of the fence posts. Its in the field next to us, the fence marking the boundary, but all the girls and their friends hang out there in the trees during summer or on any dry day. A Fort is a big deal here, and even the archaeologist admitted it was interesting! Its also possible that our garden is the second enclosure in a prehistoric stone fort, which is why we have such amazing views- tactical placement, you know- but since no hard evidence was found in the digging we were allowed to stay.

Anyhow, that winds up the 'Home' section for the month of February!