Rydal 2026 – a break in the heat, and a new record!

Phew! Rydal 2026 is over, and it was – as always – a blast. Good food, decent weather, excellent music, lots of fun, and an epic quiz. Some photos are here.

Weather

The UK (and Europe) has been in the grip of a heatwave for what seems like forever, but the Lake District weather did us a favour this week by being typically variable – even with some rain! And Rydal Water was a bit warmer than usual (apparently).

Music

Highlights included: Kol Nidrei with Sally playing the solo part beautifully, William Tell, with all the cellos playing their parts beautifully, and Tchaikovsky 4. We started Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony but no-one was sure if we all made it through to the end. We certainly skipped a few bars of his ‘Great’ C Major. Not so great, in the opinion of the first violins. Speaking of which, there was NOTHING by Ketelby this time. A deliberate omission? We’ll never know.

Every area of the orchestra was well represented, and at certain times we even had a full brass section – including trombone, tuba, and what sounded like eight horns!

For a brief moment mid-week we had FOUR double bass players. A record!

World premieres by Bob and Alan punctuated a couple of the afternoons, and plenty of other chamber music was played.

It was great to see some younger members enjoying themselves in L’Arlesienne – and many other works. And it was no surprise that The Thistle wrapped things up just in time for the quiz.

Members

We welcomed new players Ruth, Diane, Veronica, Phil, Kevin, Peter and Sarah – and it was great to see Cherry back in the fold. Long-time members Laurence and Rosanna were absent – but only because they were getting married! Many congratulations from us all.

As always, those who had to miss the week were themselves missed.

Traffic

Not bad on the whole but there was considerable disruption on the Wednesday after an accident in Ambleside when a pedestrian and an HGV collided, with fatal consequences. Be careful on the roads – especially those narrow pavements.

Planes

There were more military low-level training flights than usual, providing a dramatic backdrop to – among other things – that Schumann piece that everyone agreed was a bit of a shambles (jet fighters or no jet fighters).

Quiz

The Friday night quiz was a close-run thing AGAIN, but in the end The Donkey’s Ankles deserved their victory by being the fastest to answer the tie-break question ‘Which is the funniest planet?’.

Who will ever forget our conductor Leo Byrne getting down and dirty on the floor in an effort to represent a butler painting the Sistine Chapel? He set his body low and the bar high for the rest of his team with that performance.

The winner of the most colourful outfit award? Janet! Closely followed by Nick (Overlord) Pears. And Ben won the ‘who can hum the longest?’ mini competition. 45 seconds!

Rydal 2027

It’s time to get Rydal 2027 in the diary. It’s a little earlier than usual – 24th to 31st July. There was a slight clash with another group who had already booked the first week in August. Unbelievably, they have been coming to Rydal Hall even longer than we have!

So – Merry Christmas, and see you next year!