Lucas (2)

"The solo singing was wonderful. As Jephtha, James Gilchrist offered... virtuoso bravado..." So today's paper describes (with 5 stars) Tuesday night at the Barbican . And yesterday's Cheltenham lieder recital by that same tenor might, I feel, be described in similar terms.

It could be three years since I attended a Music Society event at the Pittville Pump Room, I'm rather ashamed to say. (Their programmes deserve more loyal support.) And I wasn't really looking forward to last night's mixed bag with any great relish, having been critical of a programme Gilchrist gave at our July 2012 Festival.

As it turned out, I was taken aback not just by the beauty of his voice, but the confidence and variety of tone he brought to his performance - settings of Shakespeare, Byron and Heine by Wolf, Mendelssohn(s), Loewe, Liszt, Grieg and Schubert in part one, and a glorious Dichterliebe after the interval.

The link to my illustration? Tenuous: Gilchrist started adult life as a doctor, and the portrait is supposed to represent another such, St Luke. It's one of the images in a garish-looking East window dating from 1850 in the Norman church I visited on Wednesday, All Saints, Salperton. The glass, "possibly" - Pevsner - by David Evans, is much eclipsed by two splendid late Kempe windows in the South wall.

Lucas (1)

The papers currently overflow with reports of media idols on trial for sexual offences, so The Hunt was an appropriate choice for the Film Society last night. Members of a small town Danish community hunted down one of their own, Lucas, a likeable kindergarten teacher, following an unhappy pupil's made-up story of his inappropriate behaviour towards her. There's a happy ending, though the scars of the chased/chaste Lucas will remain with him.

This simplifies greatly a complex piece of cinema: director Thomas Vinterberg makes it work well on nearly every level, particularly in terms of suspense - at times quite unbearable. The Lord of the flies came to mind.

I'm still hunting down Gloucestershire churches. Today, Salperton was added to my bag. This gravestone struck me for its uninhibited inscription, commemorating "my beloved husband Bill" (William George Dwight, 1949-2009). It stands to the North-West of the church.

We were walking from the Puesdown Inn, whither the three of us returned very wet. And were then disappointed to find it closed.

Tonight, I've been participating in my first MOOC. "Climate change: challenges and solutions", put on - quite efficiently, it seems to me - by the University of Exeter. Testing for a scientific duffer like me.

Post-Mandela

On the "Sunday" programme this morning, The Rev. Dirkie Van Der Spui from the Dutch reform church in South Africa was asked whether he felt guilty about his church's complicity with Apartheid. In a disarmingly honest response, he confessed that he wished he and his colleagues had found a prophetic voice with which to tell the world that all was not then well with the way his country was being run.

This made me reflect on all those conversations we have at the dinner table - one such was Friday night's - where we skate between trivia, not confessing to any great feeling during the whole evening. Opportunities may occur, but rather than upset the rhythm of politeness, we duck them, apologising for any disquieting reflection that may slip out.

Things were easier at lunch here today, sitting with people of more passion around me. The sunshine pouring into the room will no doubt have helped; and the same sunshine enlivened our walk on Friday: we caught the bus from Charlton Kings to near Northleach, and walked back to Andoversford for lunch via five more or less small villages to the North of the A40. This photograph was taken between Hazleton and Salperton.

During the walk, I was horrified to hear a tale of what happened in a Catholic parish near Petersfield a while back: the priest fell in love with a woman and wanted to marry her. So he was forced to leave his post, and the priesthood. In his place came a new priest - a former Anglican. And who accompanied him to live in the presbytery? Why, his wife! How can the Church begin to give a credible prophetic witness to injustice in the world, when it treats its own so unjustly?

More Gloucestershire Way

The forecast was good: I'd dug the garden; so I decided to tackle another section of the Gloucestershire Way today - from Coberley to Notgrove. It was a sublime walk. A gentle climb up the East side of the Churn Valley, through Upper Coberley; across to Needlehole, and down to the Hilcot lane; then up nearly as far as St Paul's Epistle, and down to the Coln via Foxcote.

Sitting with my back to the bridge over the river, next to the still-closed Frogmill, I ate my sandwiches in the sunshine. Then, crossing the A40, I found myself in horsicultural Shipton: not only with a maze of fences, but now about double the number of large houses since my last visit. The builders have had a field day.

The best part of the walk was the final stretch: across from Shipton to Hampen; over to Salperton - horses in front of the big house - and down and up the lovely, grassy valley beyond Farhill Farm, into Notgrove.

Still thinking about the Age of Stupid - see today's 4-star Times review incidentally - I found myself doing a double take at the packs of bottled water delivered to the gates of one of the biggest houses I passed: as we all surely now know what it costs to produce the stuff and its plastic bottles - if not, see here - how about a fine, not only for those smoking in public and failing to belt up in cars, but those drinking anything in the way of water other than what's perfectly good from the tap? (My entry for the most impracticable idea of the year award.)

(More photographs of the walk here.)