Old Sarum, More Concerts and Snow!!!

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, I think, I went on an adventure to Old Sarum, the outlines of an old-timey castle and cathedral. Old Sarum was given up in favour of New Sarum, now Salisbury, and stones from the cathedral and castle were used for other building projects, including the new cathedral in Salisbury. The only things that have really survived are the outlines, some of the stones from inside the walls, some stairs and the holes for the toilets. No kidding. I guess no one wanted to reuse those stones in a cathedral. Can't imagine why not.

Salisbury from the hill on the way to Old Sarum

Entrance to Old Sarum

Otherwise, I've spent a lot of my time wandering around town, applying for jobs online and making a nuisance of myself to the staff of the hostel. I've also been going to a lot of concerts since coming to Salisbury. First, I went to the Salisbury Music Society's Christmas concert at Salisbury Cathedral. Then I went to a Christmas carol concert at St Thomas's Cathedral. 

On Wednesday, I went to a performance of Handel's Messiah at Salisbury Cathedral. When I lived in Regina, the choir I was with performed Handel's Messiah at the Knox Metropolitan Cathedral. Gotta say, we've got NOTHING on the Salisbury Cathedral Choir and a 750-year-old Cathedral.

From what I can tell, the Cathedral Choir is made up of boys and girls aged 8-13 or so and maybe a dozen Lay Vicars, all men. The male soloists were all from the Cathedral Choir, and sang the bass, tenor AND ALTO parts. Seriously, when that first dude started singing the alto part, I freaked out a little bit. Or my jaw dropped completely and I kept looking around to be like, "ARE YOU FOR REAL?" And you know how the runs in Handel's Messiah are always just a little bit crappy? Like, it doesn't really matter how good the singer is, but it always sounds a little bit like they're winging it? The first alto soloist dude was AMAZING. He nailed every note. It was the best I've ever heard it. The kids sang the soprano parts, and I think some of the alto parts, too. Really really great.

And then on Friday during the night, it snowed!!!!  (Full series of snow pics here) On Friday night, I'd been telling one of the dude's at the hostel that I missed snow, and so I was very excited on Saturday morning when I woke up and saw that it had snowed, like, crazy lots (read: a few inches).

View from my window

 While I was out playing in the snow, I wandered to the Cathedral to take pictures of it and found out that there was a caroling concert that night! And, oh, was I going. There were signs all over the cathedral warning that the capacity was 1800 and all others would be turned away. I got there nice and early, just in case. Turns out only, like, 400 people showed up, but it was still nice.

The concert was a mix of performance by the Cathedral choir (same as did the Messiah) and the congregation. I think that caroling must be a very specific thing here, because we sang pretty much the same songs as we did at the St Thomas' Cathedral caroling concert. Still cool, though. The Cathedral choir kind of moved around to different places in the Cathedral to sing, and then ended up sort of in the middle. Lots of fun to actually get to sing along, except the ladies behind me took all 4 verses of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" to get the damn timing right. For reals, ladies. Just listen to the organ. And the 396 other people singing. It's not that hard.

Salisbury Cathedral in the snow

Other than that, I leave Salisbury tomorrow (WEEEEP) to go to London overnight (BOOO). I'm at the same hostel I was before, but in a mixed dorm because it's 8 GBP cheaper than a ladies only dorm, and I'm only there for the one night.

After that, it's on to Kiev for Christmas! So, next time you hear from me, I'll be in the Ukraine.

  

Hope you're all keeping warm!