It's only a game

I noticed as we lined up to sing in the Agricola mass on Monday that the Cantors (I'm not sure we qualify as a choir as there were only 6 of us?) were uniformly in black, and the Priests were all in white. I'm not sure if this could be used to cast aspersions on the relative saintliness of both groups, but it reminded me of a sporting occasion in a Monty Pythonesque sort of way. The Bishop was in a black frock coat with an old-fashioned white necktie, so could concievably have been the ref, and with a congregation/audience of about 350, there you have it really. Anyway, the Cantors could be said to have won, as they did nearly all the talking/singing (Apart from the Priest's intro, and the Bishop's sermon, everything was sung, including readings, prayers and the gospel). I was complimented by the Dean afterwards (who insisted on speaking English, so we had the rather comical situation of him speaking good English and me pidgin Finnish) on my pronounciation of Finnish (I sang a long and complicated solo in old Finnish, and the Agnus dei, again in Finnish), so there was yet another chance for my head to swell a bit more (What do you mean, it couldn't possibly?). We sang from the chancel, 3 on each side, and did a lot of turn-singing, Decani and Cantoris. The distance across the chancel was quite large, making neat and tidy ensemble singing interesting, especially during the communion, when the Finns played against type and stood in a massed bunch in front of the Altar, rather than forming two orderly queues. Maybe they were in a hurry to leave! We sang completely a capella (Fitting, really), and it was amazing to hear the congregation join in the hymns. Good solid Lutheran singing, and unbelieveably well together, considering they were spread out in a large builiding, with only us at the front leading them. Next weird and wonderful happing in the life of me and my music is playing for a scout service next Sunday in Jyväskylä. It's scheduled to last for two hours, so what it's all about, I'm not sure.

It snowed havily last night and this morning, maybe 8 cm of snow on the car at 8 am, and has been a mix of snow, sleet and hail all day. I witnessed a school bus making a rather interesting emergency manoeuvre on a steep hill. Buses generally don't have studded tyres, just heavier treads, and he had gone up a snow covered turnoff, stopped, or been forced to stop, and even with all four wheels locked, he was sliding back down the hill. Luckily there was no traffic coming up behind him. He was braking and releasing so he could steer the thing, and once he slid back down to the main road, did what resembled a backwards handbrake turn. He just kept his foot on the brake, deftly guided the back of the bus into another entrance, let the front come round, and drove off down the hill, cool as mud. I was coming down the hill on my own side, behind a snow tractor, so was going slowly and witnessed the whole thing. The funniest bit was the snow plough drivers reaction, I could see his head swiveling, eyes googling slightly, and then at the bottom of the hill he did a u-turn and went back up the other side, in an 'Oh there's still a van and a car up there, it might be a good idea to clear that bit!' sort of way .

For those of you in warmer and far more exciting parts of the world, write something (this means you, little sister, and the member of the Brass section). C'mon, Kazakstan and Strasbourg
aren't in the blackhole of internet connections, are they now... Thank you.