Cumbria Tour: Carlisle

The tour finale in Carlisle was a special day. Carole had designed the tour so that all the choirs could gather together at the end in Carlisle Cathedral for a 'big sing'. We even had a couple of extras that weren't in the choirs - Sheila the organist from Alston and Brian from Wholeness Through Christ (he'd heard it enough times to be able to join in!).

Carlisle Cathedral is an interestingly shaped venue. There isn't really a large body of congregation space anywhere, so we found ourselves performing up near the altar area with the audience taking their seats where the choir would normally sit.

The team arrived in time to have a wonderful lunch in the Prior's Kitchen in the Fratry having battled through diversions around Carlisle town centre. We polished off the remaining Moroccan lamb casseroles... We had a quick sound check and then the choir started arriving - well over 100 of them! They made a fantastic noise, particularly in the acousic of the cathedral.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and fantastic to spend a bit of time seated outside before the early evening performance. We even had our prayer time outside.

The performance was lovely, and there were quite a few in the audience - a lot more than we expected, including the Bishop of Carlisle and the chair of churches together in Cumbria, who we had seen at several of the performances.

Lots of people seemed to be really excited and fired up by this tour, so we hope and pray they will use it as a springboard for further outreach in the future.