Easter and things

The two services on Easter Day seemed to go reasonably well. The morning service was in Dønnes Kirke which was (and still is!) fabulously close to the guest house that was my temporary accommodation over Easter week. The whole service seemed to go well with only a slight disagreement over one of the sung responses. Other than that…..

The second service was in Herøy Kirke on the southern island. From here (Stavseng) to Bjørn the roads are quite pleasant to drive but from Bjørn to Herøy they are much narrower so one spends most of the time worrying about meeting oncoming traffic and remembering where the nearest passing place is. Like the morning service, there were children to be baptised, but this time there were four! The background noise level was much higher than usual which I really don’t need when I’m struggling at the best of times to hear what is going on. On the plus side, it was lovely to see around 120 people in the church. Delighted to say that Petter and I agreed on all the responses this time which is always nice! Sadly all that good work was undone when we got to the last hymn, or, more strictly speaking, not getting to the last hymn. It was probably my fault but we ended up missing out “Deg være ære” / “Thine be the glory”. Possibly wouldn’t have mattered as much if my postludium hadn’t been based on “Thine be the glory” as well. Pretty sure people thought I was playing the hymn and tried to sing along at least for a while. Following the voluntary the minster consulted the congregation and the sentiment was that they would like to sing the hymn anyway so it was sung with gusto to conclude the service. Much to my horror I then discovered that there were in fact 4verses. Pretty sure I only played 3 verses in Dønnes so apologies to anyone who felt shortchanged. That being said I was equally concerned that the congregation in Herøy may have thought I had lost the plot as it really wasn’t very clear that there was another verse over the page.

Monday was a very quiet day and I took advantage of the lovely weather to go for a nice walk to explore a new part of the island. Sadly I didn’t quite manage to make it all the way to the water side as first the road ran out and then the track became private. One exciting thing that did happen was that I finally saw a moose. After 150 odd days of Duolingo I was finally able to say “jeg ser elgen spiser...” alas it wasn’t eating an apple/bear/animal/her or various other combinations I have learned. So close…..

Tuesday was a mixture of emotions - we had our last staff meeting with Petter and a review of all the Easter services but on the lighter side we all went out for a birthday meal for Trine - twenty one again. It was a beautiful day and although we had our main course inside (the Brygga Inn) we were able to take the important part ie kake og kaffe outside to sit in the sun.

It had previously been mentioned to me that the top of the hill at Dønnes was a fabulous place to catch the midnight sun. It occurred to me that it would actually be quite nice to see the sunset at a sensible time so decided that Tuesday was a good a day as any other and with sunset at 9.07pm it was still quite a civilised time. I left in plenty time as I had just recently discovered that the remains of a German radar station from World War II were still there and being bit of a sucker for military history….

It was a stunning sunset but maybe a few clouds might have added to the ambience. There was also a tanker making its way across the water that I thought would add a certain “je ne sais quoi” to the picture but sadly it was moving too slowly.

There are no services this week but we’re building up to our Concert for Ukraine which is to take place in Nordvik at 6pm on Sunday. Tonight (Thursday) I have a rehearsal with Dønnahorn and then a rehearsal tomorrow with a band. Next week is also quite busy with other things as well - I think there maybe a Helgeland Kammerchor rehearsal and I’ve also agreed to play for a string orchestra (I think) at Peter Hass Museum (I think). I’m sure all will become clear.

My latest video “Organ Music for Good Friday” is now up on my YouTube channel. A wee programme of music by Hesse, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Parry. https://youtu.be/wz8pPBvR8pM