Exeter Cathedral was founded more than 900 years ago. It is arguably one of the most beautiful medieval cathedrals in England. It has the longest stretch of unbroken Gothic vaulting in the world. In my opinion a church or cathedral should be home to many activities that express our love for each other and all the good that God represents. And so it was in medieval times. It was a place to worship God. But it was also used as a meeting place for guilds, a banquet hall, used for fairs, as a storage place for grain and a set for mystery plays. And so it is today too at Exeter Cathedral. In an earlier blog I described how Mikee on her birthday participated (in a small way) in an opera performed at the cathedral (see Happy Birthday Mikee).
And in this blog I am telling you about another event that takes place at Exeter Cathedral: The banquet, The Grand Nave Dinner that since a few years have taken place regularly (normally every second year) at the Grand Nave of the cathedral. It is a charity event supporting the cathedral building itself but also young musicians that train at Exeter Cathedral School and other worthy causes. Nearly 500 people come to the dinner, and Jennifer and I have taken part the four times that it has taken place, and three of these we have had a table and invited guests to join us (one time we had the pleasure of being guests to friends of ours). The cathedral is being transformed. All the seats are cleared out and replaced by candle-lit tables. It is certainly one of the most magnificent “dining halls” we ever experienced and filled with the voices of minstrels (opera singers and the cathedral choir) we are transferred back to medieval times.
This time we decided to invade Exeter with a Swedish team led by a true Viking, the rector of the Swedish Church in London, Michael Persson. We also had his wife, Camilla, godmother of Eric and newly ordained deacon (see the Family Album: Camilla’s Ordination ), our friends from Marstrand, Jan Cederberg and his daughter Mia and her husband Emil (see the story about this summer Swedish west coast adventure) and Lars and Birgitta Lind (Lars was best man at our wedding). But to soften the impact of this Swedish invasion a little (if that is at all possible) we also had our local vicar at Ottery St Mary, Steve Weston, with his wife Cathy as guests. Like many of us, we love to bring our children everywhere, but in this case they had to stay at home and play with Mia and Emil’s children, Ludde and Juni.
