At a Duke's request ...

We were involved today in something that to me feels very Argyll, very Episcopal Church - something we've done before a couple of times, but not since Covid. If you've ever visited Inveraray you can't fail to have noticed the huge bell-tower, a campanile if you like, standing beside a modest church in The Avenue. This was dedicated, along with its peal of ten bells (the second heaviest in the country and well known throughout the bell-ringing world), by Duke Niall Diarmid as a memorial to the Campbells who died in World War 1 and in all previous wars. By the time the tower was completed, in 1938, the horrors of war were about to begin anew.  They stand, then, as an emblem of peace. Duke Niall left this instruction: My intention is that Mass be ... said..especially in Die Omnium Animarum for the repose of the soul of my cousin Ivar and of all from my lands and districts who have fallen in the War and for all the faithful Dead.


And that is where we were, Himself, our friend Alastair and myself, singing the Mass for Three Voices by Byrd and the Kontakion for the Departed which I've mentioned before on Blip and which was sung at the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral. We had a glorious drive to Inveraray, arriving ten minutes before the midday service which was taken by Fr Simon from Lochgilphead - you can just make him out in the shadows of the third picture above, which shows the grave candles we all carried out after the service; they don't look much in the sunlight but apparently are rather special after darkness falls. 

After the service we had lunch in The George - a hostelry that I recommend for its food and its open fires as well as its antiquity - and a great deal of jolly chat with some of the people from the service, and then a beautiful if trying drive home into the setting sun. There was a sprinkling of snow on the summit of Beinn Ime and the mist was beginning to re-form on Loch Eck as we passed. 

Having dropped off Alastair at the Western Ferries, we decided we both needed a walk, so piled on the puffa jackets and marched down to the West Bay, where we could see Jupiter to the north and Saturn to the south (second extra)   over a completely calm sea. (I don't actually know these things; I have a super app that tells you what you're looking at when you hold the phone up to the sky). It was rather splendid. 

And now, once again, we're completely exhausted, but it was a lovely day...