A Moment of Perfect Beauty

On Tuesday we went on a little adventure, Lyra, and I - as we sometimes do. Tuesdays are a long day: Eloise has dancing and Nicole pilates.

Bored of our traditional bike ride, the 20km Arana Hills Loop, I decided to ride down unto the city, across the Story Bridge, up South Bank via the Gallery of Modern Art and back across the river on the Kurilpa Bridge.

We made good progress, riding past the Ekka Showground, and taking a good look at all the rides we wouldn't be going on on Friday because they were too scary. Something about the bicycle as you ride past a fairground: you can hear the screams.

We rode on down into the City, taking footpaths and crossing intersections using the pedestrian crossings. As we neared the Story Bridge I decided to take a detour so that we could stop off for a milk break, and peeled off to the right. up Ann Street to Cathedral Square. We parked the bike outside St John's Cathedral and as I got Lyra out of her seat, under cover by the side entrance a small choir of senior school girls were having a little rehearsal - clearly accomplished singers singing a winding, cinematic theme.

We went into the Cathedral with its geometrically hewn stonework, the dark mortar delineating the light sandstone blocks, the stained-glass filtered light playing across the veined textures, ethereal strings echoing from column to column as some more girls practiced on violin, viola, cello: fragments of melody, couplets of harmony.

As we explored the back of the Cathedral an alarm went off, and, fearing another Carisbrooke Incident, we beat a hasty retreat.

We had a drink and snack in a little courtyard outside the side entrance and as Lyra tucked into her Liguht & Tangy crisps, the singing started again from inside and then the strings in counterpoint and as we made our way in to have a look the musical elements achieved a kind of living fusion which was almost perfectly beautiful as one melody played off against another, the voices and strings taking turns with the lead, building and resolving chords and cadences before fading away again into the stonework and carpet.

We finished our crisps and got back onto the bike.