War horse

Les Troyens is on this evening, relayed from the New York Met. Caroline and I went along to our local cinema at 5 o'clock, plus picnic, ready for the five-hour big screen session; but by mutual agreement we came away at the first interval. After eating the picnic round our kitchen table, I find I'm much happier listening to Berlioz in the warmth of my study.

In the 'Sixties, I was an avid fan of this composer: Benvenuto Cellini with Nicolai Gedda was one of my earliest experiences of opera at Covent Garden; and three of us drove specially to Edinburgh in May 1969 to hear Janet Baker sing Dido in Scottish Opera's Trojans. This evening, though, in Cineworld I was bored. Was it the production, the singing or the music? Perhaps a combination of all three.

The ghost of Hector's appearance in a puff of pantomime smoke, stock still and dressed in white on top of a cave, with Aeneas kneeling below, brought the Grotto at Lourdes awkwardly to mind. Deborah Voigt as usual seemed unable to stop smirking, unfortunate when you're playing Cassandra.

Yesterday, we came to the end of the Radio 3's relay of the Ring Cycle in 10 instalments (a recording of the Covent Garden production last Autumn). As then, I listened to pretty well every bar; and that probably explained why tonight's rumpty-tum Berlioz left me squirming on my cinema seat.

Alberic OSB, RIP

Brother Alberic Stacpoole (as he then was) and I were university contemporaries even though he was more than a decade senior to me. After school, he had been commissioned in the Army, where I got the impression his career had glittered, though I never knew the details. It was clear to me at Oxford that he took his studies rather more seriously than I did: this didn't in any way come in the way of our friendship, and it was still a mighty surprise that he came down with a First.

We next met properly at Lourdes in the early 'Seventies: I recall standing on a balcony with him after a late lunch. It was a hot day, but he was observant enough to detect that the breeze of the evening was just beginning to show itself: there was a sensitivity that reflected his always immaculate appearance.

It was a shock to see him again - after a long gap - at Easter last year. His handshake had the same warmth, but try as he might to make sense, his mind was elsewhere. So it's a mercy that he has at length died.

I took this happy photograph of Alberic (centre) at Ampleforth on 8th July 1973 - after the ordination of Fr. Richard ffield, seen looking away to the right.

A garden toast

Old friends from East Anglia were on a Wales and West tour, and spent last night with us. It was their wedding anniversary, for which they very decently supplied their own champagne. The air was warm enough to drink it in the garden, but the wind too gusty for supper outside. Anyway, we would have missed the heroics of Mario Balotelli.

Johnny and I looked at my album which included the week we were both together in Lourdes 39 years ago: he, always immaculately turned out, was there wearing the very same jacket as in this photograph, and even now hardly looks more than a year older.

Feuilles lourdes

With friends staying the weekend, we were dropped at the end of the Stockwell lane this morning, and set off to walk home, via Coberley. The inch or two of snow that fell over the past few days had frozen, making walking easy on this windless morning, provided you avoided the icy patches: no mud, at least! But the real pleasure of being out today was to see trees glistening as if coated in caramel. Nature, in suspended animation! Hard to describe such rare beauty, and to capture it in a photograph: I had forgotten how necessary it is, in a snowy world, to stop down, to compensate for the glare. So, thank you, Lightroom!

(Today we are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.)

Pilgrim places

From Salamanca, we caught a train to Lisbon on Saturday last; and after two happy days there, we are now back home again - via another five trains (Lisbon - Hendaye - Toulouse - Paris - London - Cheltenham).

R.L. Stevenson wrote that "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive," and, although it's nice to come home, I'm inclined to think he was right, at least so far as pilgrimages are concerned. We loved our four weeks' walking on the Via de la Plata, but are not sad only to have managed half of it. Santiago de Compostela is the focus for most of the other walkers we met, but it doesn't seem to us particularly necessary to get there. Indeed, many V. de la P. pilgrims are said to be disappointed when they arrive, such is the touristy hustle and bustle of Santiago - a great contrast to the weeks spent amidst such a stunning variety of things natural, studded with mainly small places to stay en route.

Perhaps it's different for pilgrims to Fatima and Lourdes, most of whom do NOT walk there: we passed through them both on our way back from Lisbon!

Anyone for an iPilgrimage?

This is the time of year when planeloads of pilgrims jet off to Lourdes, Knock etc. for a few days' devotion: all entirely in accordance with tradition and admirably motivated, but a huge expenditure of carbon.

I would like to promote the concept of a virtual pilgrimage, which involved all would-be pilgrims staying at (or near) home for the period they would otherwise be travelling. After all, the idea of the fourteen Stations of the Cross - which you see in very many of our churches, certainly in Catholic ones - evolved as a substitute for those who could not make it personally to visit the Holy Land.

If you aren't familiar with the Stations of the Cross, those in my own church, St Gregory's, Cheltenham, can be "visited" here. The image above is the "First Station: Jesus is condemned to death."

France: Pau - Lourdes

The coach disgorged us at Pau station 90 minutes or so later than expected, but no harm was done: indeed, we had rather enjoyed this minor drama. Up we went on the funicular to the Boulevard des Pyrénées, but of the view there was none: the day was grey. Caroline rather likes Pau, but we didn't dawdle long in the City after lunch, feeling the weight of our backpacks. Instead, we tracked down an efficient bus which took us out to the Europcar base and to temporary possession of a Fiat 500 diesel. (It seemed plenty big enough for the two of us - though I attracted some odd looks when getting in and out - and used very little fuel: in fact it's rather more economical than the Smart car that Caroline covets.)

Though the object was to discover some more remote parts of the Midi-Pyrénées, our first stop was Lourdes, which we could have reached by train. I had been on two Ampleforth Pilgrimages in the early 'Seventies, of which I had clear and happy memories. Caroline for her part was intrigued to see what the fuss was about.

Although 2008 has been a big year at the Shrine, 150 years after Bernadette's apparitions, there weren't hordes of pilgrims about in the Domain on a damp November afternoon. All things considered we declined to join the short queue for the baths, walking past to the bridge across the Gave and into La Prairie: heavily developed now compared to 35 years ago, it remains a still and special place.