Remember, O thou man ...

It's almost Advent. And although it was freezing in church this morning, it was beautiful when the sun, just about to vanish in a midday sleet shower, poured in and left this multicoloured radiance on the wall by the pulpit. Why, do I hear you ask, was I in the empty church when I should have been making the lunch, or even eating it? For a start, I was singing "Remember O Thou Man" with four other women and one man. I was singing tenor, because that's something we're rather short of in Dunoon. We were rehearsing for our Advent Sunday Evensong, and that, chums, is next Sunday.

And no, it's not time to rush out and buy a Christmas tree. It will be the beginning of Advent, with four weeks to go till it's Christmas (Advent is early this year). It's the very best time of the year, with the darkness and the anticipation and the sudden harbingers of what we're awaiting beyond the commercial and the tawdry. I love it; I love singing the music; I love plainsong; I love my empty cold church. 

Had it all today.