Well, you certainly responded to the invitation to Evensong last night in big numbers, didn’t you?

The cathedral was packed, with hundreds of voices from around the diocese and further afield – a lovely gathering. Lots of people went out the door asking whether we will be doing it again. The answer is yes – book the date in your diary now: 22 March 2009 at 6.30 pm.

The only sadness of yesterday was looking once more in vain in the vestment cupboard for rose coloured vestments for Refreshment Sunday.

Actually, we have several things missing from our set of vestments and several things need replacing. We need a purple high mass set, a black high mass set for the requiem and a rose set for days like yesterday. (And if anyone in Christendom has the right to wear rose (ie pink) vestments a couple of times a year, I think I have quite a good claim).

For the uninitiated a high mass set is a chasuble (the poncho like thing that the presiding priest wears at the Eucharist), a dalmatic (which is the squarer shaped poncho that the deacon wears – usually with two stripes on it called the orphreys), a tunicle (similar to a dalmatic but with one stripe for the sub-deacon) plus accompanying stoles and maniples.

One particuarly nice thing last night was that Rob Laws flew in with a pilgrimage group and they joined us at Evensong en route to Iona. It is lovely to meet a blog reader/writer after online communications going back many months.

Which reminds me somehow, we must try a flashmob evensong sometime, mustn’t we.