Midday with Bach and the Afternoon with the Combine Harvester.

The Cathedral Organ.

Every Saturday at midday in the Cathedral is an organ recital.  There is no charge to listen, but I always give a donation at the end of the performance.  The cathedral was packed today to hear the Cantor, Ulrike Bloss, play Mendelssohn's  Prelude and Fugue in D Minor Op 37 and JS Bach's Fantasie and Fugue in C Minor BWV 537.   I sat in my usual seat, in the corner with the slender remembrance candles flickering gently in the subdued light.  I was soon in tears, a Cathedral and Bach's organ music  are guaranteed to make me need a packet of tissues and a pair of dark glasses!

It is cold and windy here, the everyday heat has taken its leave, and I've had  to wear my fleece jacket and socks once again!   I don't do "Wandering in the cold,"  so I came home at 3.30pm to work on my  German reflexive verbs that cause me so much trouble.    I'd just got stuck in when, what sounded like a noisy dumper truck, came thundering passed below my window.  I looked out to see the "yellow beast" pictured in the lower photos, harvesting the ripened cornfield outside my window.   It was a clever machine, gathering in the corn with its wide rotors, threshing it and spewing out the chaff onto the ground, all in one action.

My first thought was for the poor little mice who have suddenly lost their homes, and now that the grain is gathered, the sparrows and crows are having a "field day" on the leftover seeds.   The whole field was harvested in around an hour, and I was amazed to look out and find my lovely cornfield battered and flattened.  I've watched the corn growing since my arrival in April and I hope they don't scorch the field, it will smell terrible and the white smoke will ruin my washing!