Christmas Concert

It's minus 5 degrees and our car is covered in a thick layer of frost. This is proper winter weather and I love it. I'm a big hairy bear, my thermostat is broken and I spend so much of my life boiling over, that it's a relief to be able to don a coat, a scarf, a jumper and a cloth cap and still feel human!

We're just leaving York having listened to an uplifting concert of Christmas music performed by the wonderful Sounds Fun choir and the fabulous Djembe-bash drummers. 

We travelled up in the late morning, and as we moved further north were rewarded with increasingly more beautiful wintry scenes. The sun was low in the sky and glinting magically on frost-laden trees and misty fields. 

On entering Yorkshire, a freezing fog descended on the A1, which seemed to be hovering at ground level. We were driving through swirling white clouds, and yet the sky directly over head was still blue, and at one point, just before the sun began to set, and somewhere near Ferrybridge, the mist turned a sickly shade of orange. It was incredibly spooky. I half expected to see the arrival of a massive space ship!

York was freezing in a damp, bone-chilling sort of way. Even the locals were commenting on how cold it was. Nathan immediately bought a hat. 

We did a spot of Christmas shopping and then stationed ourselves in Cafe Concerto, where we ate soup and cake, and I decided that I needed to seriously reduce my intake of fat! 

The concert was in a church just off Micklegate which was decked out for Christmas with a number of pews covered with boxes for the poor. 

There were carols, great Christmas songs, spirituals, rounds and some fabulous grooves from the drumming group. I was thrilled to see two community groups coming together to sing such good music. They tackled two premiers and a host of new arrangements. Really very impressive for a group who have a no-audition policy. 

They sang my song with gusto and passion, and obviously particularly enjoyed the passage filled with suspensions at the end because it sounded great. 

There was a buffet laid on for the audience afterwards, which I thought was a lovely touch. 

All in all a great evening. I've had a really lovely day, in fact.