Life in Yorkshire

The slow pace of life, exacerbated by the financial downturn, is vexing us right sore!

Trying to negotiate and balance the separate requirements of the planning and building control elements of UK planning law is proving a steep learning curve, as are the hidden differences between general and specialist building suppliers. Such are the problems of finding windows which comply with the highest of the new insulation specifications (a specialist UPVC firm won hands down on grounds of using new technology, speed of delivery, ability to supply the special windows we need and cost), of finding a technologically efficient and modern-looking fully glazed fireplace (our design seemingly only available from Italy), of locating solar heating using the latest efficiency technology (Americans and Germans seem to lead the way), that we are now 3 months behind schedule, and have not even started to find a builder capable of installing the newest of technologies. Watch this space.

Meanwhile Nature knows nothing of our problems and proceeds apace into a very windy and woefully dry Spring. Castle Howard planted some 600 hornbeam hedging and we had to spend the next month trying to rescue them when the 'drought' opened up the ground. Ken, our local farmer, took me round his new born lambs and cattle. New birth always lifts the spirits, brings new hope, so we labour on, rather smug in the idea that with so much planting we are reducing our carbon footprint.

York Minster: Good Friday 3 hour devotion. We usually look for some kind of spiritual reflection on this day and, this year, chose York Minster. What a joy, and what a disaster. The joy was the use of a travelling set of modern paintings (now owned by the methodists) depicting the various scenes associated with the last days of Jesus' life. They were well worth studying and the commentary was well worth listening to, challenging and deep. What was the disaster was that the Minster remained open to tourists who were allowed consistently to circulate around us, and the the thread of the commentary (and so our thoughts) was broken all too often by invitations for them to join us. I know what a goldfish bowl feels like. My mind strayed (too often I think) to Jesus overturning the tables of the merchants and moneychangers in the Temple. "My house is a house of prayer". Regrettably, on this occasion, York Minster made it a house of voyerism.

On organ playing I have reversed the film, "Four weddings and a funeral". by playing recently for four funerals and a wedding. What a lovely, friendly group of musicians and clergy serve this area, but what an ideosyncratic group of organs we have! I started on an organ, reached only by a ladder up the north face of the Eiger, specified in the 'English' manner, ie plenty of 8's and no real pedal department. It can only improve I thought. How wrong I was! The next had but 2 pedal stops, one a useful 16' reed which gave some semblance of uasability with Bach. Good, I thought, only to be told that that was to be replaced in a forthcoming rebuild by yet another fat 16' flue, not really for the sake of authenticity but because that was what the grant had demanded. Consequently they will be left with an instrument capable of playing only 19th century English music, and if they really proceed along the outmoded 'authentic' mode, they should replace the awkwardly placed balanced swell, with that terrible invention of the English, the 'kick-down' swell. How would it be, I wonder, if life became centred round 'authenticity', that our houses, to receive any grants for improvement, must remain 'authentic' to the period in which they were built. Even listed buildings allow some lattitude for what goes on inside, as well as cunningly hidden insulated glazing. There is always a way to combine original with modern. Ah, well. The 3rd organ was the worst of all. Not only was the pedal department so noisy and missing so many notes as to be unusable, the great was missing, in all departments, treble A and D. The fourth organ, for a wedding, I was informed was a well specified 3 manual digital Makin. So it proved to be, relatively comfortable to play but totally lacking in character and completely unable to cope with louder reeds on the great or pedal which sounded like bad 60's electronics. What was worse was the stops brought out by the thumb pistons, increasing fat 8's followed, on the great, by a disastrous 16', not the delicate sound one expected to play French music, but one which gave a dominant feeling of mud. A great shame. Once I got used to hand registrations this organ had much to commend it, but all hidden by the need I find in this area to make all things English. I have no doubt how this area will vote in the forthcoming European elections. I shall report on this in my next blog.