Sedbergh Town Twinning
Singing Slovenia- Christmas 2005

Sedbergh singers in a big concert at Ptuj with about 20 different choirs and their town band.

Christmas is definitely the best time for singers to visit Slovenia not just for the festive lights and snowy mountains, but for all the wonderful singing events that take place at that time of year.

We hired a mini bus and car at Venice airport and, on driving into Ljubljana, were greeted by the students in the main thoroughfare each holding a letter which spelt out a welcome to our singers. After an excellent party with both English and Slovene singing, we drove on to our accommodation at the tourist farm Urksa, on a hilltop overlooking Zrece - but returned to the capitol the following day to sing under the Christmas trees and a dazzling display of lights in this beautiful city.

On Christmas Eve we joined the party walking from Rogla down to Skomarje - although the route changed because of the deep snow. We were also joined by an English TV company whose professional cynicism provided quite a contrast to the romance of snowy mountain top churches, carols and the hospitality of the Slovenes.

They were filming an English couple on holiday in the Rogla Hotel and I overheard their camerawoman telling the producer: “Yeah, I got some great shots of Natasha falling over on the ice, and then sobbing into her mobile phone that she wanted to go home!”

After singing with our friends at the midnight mass in Skomarje church we joined a party for more singing at Jose Kovse's guesthouse, Medved - where the Cautley Carollers stayed last Easter. It was a surprise to walk into this beautiful mountaintop home and find a photo showing Roger and Judith Bush, Dorcas Thomas, Penny Carruthers and myself proudly displayed on the wall.

At Urska we ate like royalty - despite most of the group being vegetarians we enjoyed a splendid variety of dishes. So after an enormous Christmas lunch we appreciated being able to work off some of the fat by joining a lamp-lit procession from the church in Zrece (where we sang at a special service blessing the children) to the Sveta Neza church on another hilltop overlooking the town. We were very honoured by again being invited to sing during the service - our Slovene carols being especially appreciated (we had practiced some of them on the doorstep of Sedbergh Parish Council chairman Alan Prat while carol singing up Dowbiggin Lane before leaving Sedbergh.)

But what we enjoyed most was meeting - and being welcomed by - many of our Slovene friends who had visited Sedbergh over the year: Dusan, Ivan, Jose and Anthon from the Ljudski Pevci iz Stranice, Marjan Hren who came with Odmev for the carol weekend, Samo Ivacic and the singers from the choir who came in August, and of course Zdenka and the Mayor who gave us a special welcome at the Mayor's Office.

Some of our singers wanted to demonstrate the English carol singing tradition which they did outside Edvard and Dagma's house by the hilltop church - after which we were invited in for more singing and refreshments. What I enjoyed most was joining a group of five men from Zrece singing the harmonies for some of the Slovene folk songs we had learnt earlier in the year.

Our Boxing Day is their Independence Day, and like last year we joined the concert in the main church for a fabulous display of singing from about 20 different groups and soloists (even the firemen have their own choir) - all from the Zrece area. Although this year we also sang a couple of songs, and were surprised when the entire audience started clapping along with one of our Wassailing Songs. Afterwards we spilled out into the blizzard for mulled wine and a party out in the snow.

If the Slovene's are impressed by an English nonchalance for walking in the rain, we were all amazed by the apparent unconcern shown by the Zrece locals for driving in deep snow. With good winter tyres, they leap into their cars and drive off without a thought in conditions that would have our schools and offices closed and most of the roads closed for traffic. But by the end of the week we had developed the skills necessary for putting chains on and off in the snow, though not without a lot of help from passing motorists who would stop to give us a hand.

Another thing we noticed was that many drivers were tooting their horns and making rude gestures at us until someone explained that because we had Venice number plates it was assumed we were all Italians. There was a very noticeable difference in the attitude of other drivers when we put a large GB sign in the back window!

Our final concert was in the ancient town of Ptuj where we sang with another 20 local choirs as well as their town band, a 30 piece wind ensemble who amongst other tunes played several movie theme tunes - including Bridge over the River Kwai and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, reminding us all of another town band close to our hearts. Afterwards we joined a huge banquet in the hall were many of the singers would break into spontaneous singing - some of which we were able to join.

As well as all the singing, we also found time to ski, walk in the hills and swim in the spa (with the unusual sensation of being able to swim from the warm pool inside out into the falling snow outside.) But everyone agreed that what we all enjoyed most was meeting all these wonderful people and being invited into their homes to celebrate the common ground between our two towns.