A Church Concert

Yesterday evening I went with my friend E to a concert in a countryside church in the village outside town where my parents lived in their retirement years - and my paternal grandparents all their life. They + more relatives are also buried in the churchyard there. 

When we arrived, I first went for a stroll around the churchyard to check on 'my' graves, while E went into the church to make sure we got good seats. She also knew a few more people who were coming - including one of her own daughters singing in the choir.

No flowers had been planted yet on the graves tended by the church (a service we pay an annual fee for, and pansies will probably appear there any day now); but to my surprise I found this little angel keeping watch on my parents' grave. As it was not me or my brother who put it there, I'm intrigued who did... As I've never seen any of our other family graves adorned with such ornaments either, I suspect it's most likely that it really belongs to a neighbouring grave, adorned by several similar items. (Could have fallen over, and got picked up by churchyard staff not knowing where it belonged.) But as I don't know, I did nothing about it. (If it really does belong on the other grave I suppose they will recognise it and take it back.)

Fristad Church

It had been raining earlier in the day, but the rain stopped in the afternoon - I did not need the umbrella I had brought "just in case". After a very summery Saturday, I was back in my winter coat, though!

Photo of the interior taken while we were waiting for the concert to begin. We were there early as quite a large audience could be expected (and so it also turned out). A nice surprise for me was to also meet another old friend there (84 years old now) whom I hadn't seen in years. One of his sons was also in the choir. He sat down with us and he and I had a nice catching up chat before the concert started - while E was chatting with some other friends.

The concert was a musical Mass entitled Gloria, by Tore Aas. (Originally in Norwegian, and performed by the Oslo Gospel Choir. If you want to get an idea of what the music sounds like, you can find it on YouTube.)

Standing ovations at the end of the performance...
 

... and the choir repeating the last part... 

During the concert, the evening sun had come out of hiding and the sky was blue again.