Thursday, 13th November

Went up to London in the afternoon to go to Evensong at Westminster Abbey at 5p.m. Dark and cold and rainy weather. However, there were a lot of people at the service and it was very good. I was fortunate to get a seat on the end of the pew right next to the boy sopranos. The only disappointing thing was that James O'Donnell, (Organist and Master of the choristers) who I had met at an Adelaide RSCM Summer School , was not conducting. It was a rather earnest youngish man , whose style was a little peculiar (to me , anyway) , but he certainly got the sound, so that is all that matters. They sang 'O Praise the Lord' by Batten as the Introit and the Mag and Nunc were Purcell in B flat, accompanied on a chamber organ in the aisle between the two sides of the choir. Responses by Ayleward and the Anthem by John Blow 'God is our hope and strength'. So it was very lovely and I introduced myself to Fr Graham Napier , one of the priests, who used to be at Christ Church St Laurence , in Sydney for a number of years. He has been very good to Anna and Matt and they have sung at the Abbey several times in a substitute choir when the boys and men have been on holidays. He said they are probably spending Christmas and New Year with him and he wll take them up the top of the Abbey Tower to see the London fireworks!
Then I waited outside in almost gale force conditions and met Craig Jones, my friend from Surrey Libraries. There had been a Library conference on RFID at the conference Centre opposite the Abbey , so we had arranged to meet up with Fiona Emberton (and Ian Spence )http://www.cilip.org.uk/interests/rfid/rfid2007/fionaemberton.html who was one of the speakers. I met Fiona when she was working at Brisbane City Libraries and 'Scottish' Susan was on her exchange, as they worked together in Scotland. Fiona and Ian are co-directors of Embervision , an Australian and UK based business specialising in library transformation and culture change. www.embervision.cc . We went to a nearby pub for dinner, which as it happened was full of other librarians who had been at the conference. It was a very interesting evening as Fiona and Ian told us all about their work . Their Australian clients include the Universities of Sydney and Newcastle and various public libraries , including the Adelaide Hills and Caloundra. They have also worked in NZ for Auckland City Council and several others as well as many prominent local authorities in the UK, including Westminster , Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Hopefully they will get some more work in Sydney and I can treat them in the style they are accustomed .