St. Valentine's Dinner

I've been feeling really ghastly of late - a hacking cough left me barely able to breathe, and the doctor diagnosed viral bronchitis. Apparently there is an epidemic of it going round... strangely, after the swine flu non-event of the century, no-one seems to have mentioned any other epidemics. However, after having been put on a nebuliser in the doctor's surgery, (I was the third patient in a row on Monday morning to have needed the treatment) given a course of steroids (8 tablets a day... you think they'd have made bigger tablets!) and sleeping under the duvet for a week, I have emerged feeling vaguely human.

I still have a chesty cough, but I can at least now string two sentences together without launching into a coughing fit and turning a nasty shade of blue...

Anyway, yesterday evening I felt well enough to consider eating something... but didn't really feel up to cooking. Fortunately, there was a Dinner/Dance event in the parish, organised by one family, and with several sets of teenagers volunteering to serve the meal for their parents and friends. I emailed to see if there were any spare tickets, and I was in luck!

Technically, it was a night for couples to enjoy themselves - having a chance to be husbands and wives rather than mums and dads - so it was a way to support family life. However, as one of the teenagers remarked to me, my "other half" was next door in the church, and He is omnipresent anyway... he just didn't actually need a seat... or a ticket... or dinner...

It was a really good evening: I'd never have believed that 50 people could fit in the small hall...

There was live entertainment provided by one of the very talented teenagers:

One of the diners had just celebrated his 50th birthday, so what looked like a firework was added to a cheesecake for an unusual birthday treat...

After the meal, the waiters and waitresses came out for a curtain call and photo shoot...

I think I am the nearest thing to (semi) official photographer... I usually have either phone camera or digital camera to hand, and it doesn't take much to persuade people to pose "for the blog"!

Note to self: best not to try to take photos after alcohol has been consumed... the photo is blurred because the people all moved... honest!

It was a very enjoyable evening, and hearty congratulations to all those involved!

Candlemas...

I have been very remiss in posting stuff this week. I realised that I hadn't managed to put up any pictures from Candlemas last week... so here we have a few!

I love Candlemas. It's the anniversary of the arrest of St. Anne Line - one of my patron saints - in 1601. She allowed too many people to gather for Mass at her house; the number of people arriving drew the attention of her neighbours, and they reported her to the pursuivants. Although the priest celebrating Mass managed to unvest and hide in the priest hole prepared for him, the presence of the vestments and sacred vessels ready for Mass was enough to convict St. Anne of harbouring a priest.

We started off with the blessing and distribution of candles, and then a procession. I was rather relieved that the procession was indoors: I'm still coughing my lungs inside out (that's what it feels like) and I was unwilling to venture out into the cold damp air any more than absolutely necessary. As I was coughing quite a lot, I didn't take as many photos as usual. I also only took a couple of very short video clips, as I didn't want to damage the microphone!!

I'm getting better at timing my camera shots... I quite liked these "mid-action" ones!

The Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate made up our visiting schola: their high, clear voices sounded quite ethereal, and the couple of clips I managed to get on the video didn't really do them justice.

A short snippet during the Offertory...

A few photos from the most heart-stopping moments of the Mass...

And I couldn't resist taking a video clip of the Sisters singing after Communion...