Ice and Plainchant

Listening to - Nothing Like the Sun - Sting

I had to go out to a "community meeting" last night - the sort they still hold in school halls and it meant walking through the cold and dark. It brought back memories of walking to the phone box when I was at college to phone someone back home. I used to listen to Gregorian Chant on my headphones that I suppose was quite unusual for someone of twenty. It didn't take me long to get used to living in the city but I was cut-off from most of the rest of the people on my course so I spent a lot of time walking with my camera and headphones. The winter of 1983 was very cold, and cold for a long time. I had a problem with my landlord not that he was aware of it. He was bigoted and ignorant and I got wound up so much by it that I was on the point of throwing it all up and returning home. The little walks with the happy monks were my calming time. I can't remember why I started listening to Gregorian Chant though it may have been something as stupid as being the chosen listening of Ria's husband in Butterflies. In fact I think I have some chant on the hard disk so :-

Listening to - Gregorianischer Choral

This one is not quite as good as the tape I usually had on my walks but in this world the thought of a defined regime with no ups and downs and outside worries is quite a tranquilliser. There was a monastery near where we used to live though it was not really obvious. I once had a look at the aerial photo of it on Multimap (when the quality was higher) and sure enough it showed a walled garden with tranquil paths and vegetable gardens. I think there was some sort of dispute between the monks and the neighbours when in response to the fact that the new estate was built closer than agreed to the walls of the garden. The monks put up a tall extension to the wall and I was with them all the way.