Remembering in Inveraray

Today was entirely given over to an event in Inveraray, an hour's drive from here. For several years now, we've been invited to sing at a Requiem Mass for the dead of not only World War 1 - which was the cause of the then Duke asking that this annual event take place in All Saints Church in memory of the fallen - but of war and violence throughout the world. Our tenor wasn't able to come this year, so Himself and I sang the plainsong Missa de Angelis throughout the Eucharist, and I was allowed to sing the Kontakion for the Departed as the catafalque was censed at the end of the service. 

There. It sounds extraordinary if you're not involved in this kind of thing, and even for Episcopalians like us this is an extraordinary event, made possible in our time by Fr Simon from Lochgilphead, who himself is pretty extraordinary! We drove up in the morning, finding the only streaks of sunlight we've seen for a week as we drove. There were more of the amazing vestments and altar dressings and so on than we've seen before, as people have been mending them. There were candles everywhere. And as we arrived, the huge bells - housed in their own tower beside the church - were sounding in a peal rung by the Scottish Association of Change Ringers, some of whom had come from as far off as Inverness. In the little lochside town, the sound was daunting and amazing. And our bishop was there too, our friend Bishop David and Sarah, and friends from our own church (one of whom was serving and had brought the incense from Holy Trinity). 

Afterwards we all - bellringers, musicians, server, clergy - headed over to The George Hotel for lunch, packing a fireside end of one of the areas in the extraordinary building, a tiny bit of which you might make out in the bottom left of the collage. As the further-travelled ringers departed at the end of the meal, the Argyll contingent gathered in a corner, not staggering out until well after 3pm.

We went on to see our friends' new house in the town, where six of us had tea and shared what we'd been up to since we'd all been together in Dunoon, before the Bish and Sarah drove us back to our car. The road was quiet and we whizzed home in the dark. Now our clock has struck one and I'm stupidly sitting here typing.

I'll regret this ... but it was a good day!