Sunday dog walking...

Out for an early run ahead of Sunday dog walking. The original plan had been to go to the dog show at the Double Locks, but the others were busy sorting out all sorts of domestic chores and we were too late. Instead, we all went for a walk down by the river and the dogs had fun chasing tennis balls.

The only minor problem turned out to be ensuring everyone got a chance to retrieve a ball. Because Martha won't fetch things if there are bigger dogs around — she's quite small and remembers having things taken off her when she was young — we had to engineer things so that someone threw one ball for the spaniels and, while they were distracted, someone else threw another one in the opposite direction for Martha.

This strategy worked successfully the first few times we tried it. It was only when Dasher, swimming back with her ball, noticed that the other one bobbing in the water that things started to go askew. She swam out towards to the other ball, putting Martha off, but couldn't actually bring it back because she already had a tennis ball in her mouth and couldn't fit both at the same time. Eventually, she brought her ball back — dropping it in a very muddy puddle in the process — leaving the other to float away. Fortunately, the crisis was averted by a passing labrador, who kindly retrieved the second ball for Martha.

Partway round the field, the others got talking about a fence post A had tried to climb a few days before. After making a decent attempt this time round — in her defence, she was wearing wellies — I reluctantly let myself get talked into it. Although it was a decent height — maybe 1.5m — it was probably 25cm in diameter and actually pretty easy to mantel, even if I did use a cheeky knee, rather than go for a proper hand-foot on the top.

After a couple of hours — the time flew by — we fetched up back at the quay. I'd originally planned to go for a climb, but my left knee was nagging slightly, so I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went home to watch the finals of the bouldering from Munich.

Proms 2017: Reformation Day organ music

As part of the BBC's on-going commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his Ninety-Five Thesis on the door at Wittenberg, today's set of three proms formed a mini Reformation Day series. The first, an organ recital by William Whitehead and Robert Quinney, alternating Lutheran chorale preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach Orgelbüchlein with contemporary pieces setting hymns not included in Bach's little organ book.

The newer pieces started with Cheryl Frances-Hoad's prelude on Luther's hymn Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott — which one of the presenters describes somewhere as the rallying cry of the Reformation. The prelude starts with a slow, contemplative statement of the theme in a very Bachian registration with a gentle harmonisation in the pedals. The piece gradually changes as more complex harmonies are added in the middle voice, building as registrations change to end with a powerful fortissimo that is a world away from the opening bars.

The second new prelude features Jonathan Dove's version of the baptismal hymn, Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam. The piece begins with a restrained, shimmering accompaniment with glittering accents from the flute stops before the chorale theme enters, quietly at first in the middle voice, then stated again in the pedals at much greater volume, building through the rest of the to a loud final statement. It's a truly superb piece that sounds very, very English and different to Bach's take on the same chorale in Clavier-Übung III. It's also an tour-de-force for the Albert Hall's organ, showing its range from beautiful, subtle, quiet colours to commanding tutti.

The third new piece was a prelude by Daniel Saleeb on Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort, followed by a toccata on the same theme. The piece starts with piano, uncertain harmonics, never quite straying into Messiaen territory but certainly skirting its borders, with interjections of the chorale theme in the upper voice. The toccata, a much showier take on the same material, starts very quiet but swells rapidly, with dramatic flourishes, before dropping away to finish on the quietest of notes.

These new pieces, interspersed with JS Bach's preludes were followed by Mendelssohn's third organ sonata and Samuel Sebastian Wesley's duet, Prelude to the Grand Organ Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach, which appropriately enough, preceded Bach's vast triple themed fugue in E-flat major from Clavier-Übung III, the companion to the prelude that opened the program.

Munich Bouldering 2017

Wow but the Munich Boulder World Cup really delivered a fantastic end-of-season sensation. The semi-finals were pretty exciting, especially with Alex Megos making one of his rare competition appearances and then staying on to commentate on the men's finals.

The women's finals were a bit of a mixed bag — afterwards, Alex Puccio said she felt a little bit embarrassed that she couldn't even work out how to pull on to one of the problems — but it was fun to watch Stasa Gejo and Janja Gambret crushing problems no-one else was able to touch.

The men's finals, on the other hand, were absolutely fantastic, with Jan Hojer, the only European to make the last round — four members of Team Japan made it through — climbing in front of a German crowd. And it really seemed to help: he used a very sneaky beta to top the first boulder; flashed the second, where no-one else even picked up a bonus; and cleaned up on the third, leaving him with a one boulder lead going into the last round.

Climbing second after Yoshiyuki Ogata, Hojer came out looking distinctly nervous and, with everything to play for, powered his way up top to take the win. It was one of the best finishes of the season — up there with Coxey and Chon in Mumbai — and so well deserved, especially after his storming performance in the lead world cup in Villars.

Quiz!

After going our separate ways for afternoon, we regrouped at the pub for our usual Sunday quiz. With A busy on a work call-out, we temporarily renamed our team, only reverting to our usual moniker when she rejoined us. The questions were a bit trick — we didn't do particularly well on the sport round — but we pulled it back at the very end, acing the final double-points round and getting all but one of the pictures correct, finishing a point or two clear of our nearest rivals!

Proms 2017: Reformation Day passion

Todays series of proms marking the 500th anniversary of the start of the reformation concluded with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort performing Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion in its original liturgical context.

This isn't a new concept for the Dunedins: they released an excellent studio recording in 2013 which featured the same sequence of the pieces; a godsend when I was trying to puzzle out the identity of the organ piece preceeding the passion — it was Buxtehude's Prelude in F-sharp BuxWV146. In fact, the only really significant differences between the recorded version and tonight's performance, other than the expanded choral forces, was the decision to sing the congregational hymns in English — expecting an unprepared proms audience to sing in German was probably considered a little bit of a stretch — and Stephen Farr's addition of a muscular organ accompaniment to the final verse of Now thank we all our God to round the night off on a rousing note.

The performers were consistently excellent, with Nicholas Mulroy strikingly good as the evangelist and Matthew Brook, who I've raved about before, on fine, angry form as Jesus. The St John Passion, shorter and more intense than the contemplative St Matthew, makes a fine piece for the proms and the notion of getting the audience involved — John Butt apparently spent half an hour coaching them before the start of the performance — worked particularly well.

Another standout concert from the 2017 season.