Ely Cathedral--RAF Alconbury Middle High School Graduation

Our RAF Alconbury base school is quite unique. It is small, it's very personable and it's an American school in the middle of England. Each year about 30-40 students graduate from Alconbury Middle High School. And each year for the past few years their graduation ceremony has been held at Ely Cathedral in Ely. Now that is quite amazing... Until this year though, I'd never been to a high school graduation ceremony here. But then an opportunity came up when Katya's choir teacher asked me to accompany their tiny choir at the graduation when they were going to sing a sort of goodbye-send off song. Although all the practices would have been happening right around our pre-moving and packing out, I said yes as I really wanted to help them sound better with a real piano accompaniment. Everything worked out even despite our busy schedule.

On June 9th, I joined Katya in Ely late in the afternoon. She had come to Ely with the choir by bus already, but I just came for the rehearsal at around 4 pm. After the run through, Katya went to eat dinner and hang out with her friends and I went for a walk through Ely--to one of the famous antique shops and to get some fish and chips. It was a glorious afternoon! And I feel like I needed to write a post about it even if it's just because I wanted to capture the great relaxing feeling I had sitting on the grass in the park next to the cathedral, eating my fish and chips and observing people walking by.

...And watching the cows. This is incredible to me--cows and an ancient cathedral all in one spot. Maybe it's because our stuff was already all packed out and it hit me hard that we'd be moving soon, or maybe it's because it was such a beautiful sunny afternoon, but I felt so amazed with England and its culture at that moment. I knew I would miss the oldness and the simplicity, the views right in the middle of town and the small town feel of some really famous places. I knew I would miss the cows eating grass by the cathedrals...

I walked back to the cathedral after my dinner, sat through the graduation ceremony (which was a delight) and played for the choir. The acoustics of this place made the choir and the piano combination sound angelic. It was a great performance and made lots of people teary.

Someday this little one will graduate. I guarantee I will be one of those moms who cry and cry and cry... at least inside.

Lyana.