A welcome delivery

The postman brought this for me today:

and here you can see where it has come from:

This is my new cassock from Gammarelli. checking the receipt, I see that I ordered it on 2 May 2007 when I was in Rome. They told me that it would take about a year; every now and again I have been thinking "I must ring them up" but the arrival of the parcel means that is one less job to do.

It's now hanging up to get the creases out and I think perhaps the High Mass at Aylesford tomorrow will be a good first outing for it. I have two cassocks, one for Sundays and feasts, and the other for weekdays. My Barbiconi cassock has been the Sunday one and will now be relegated to weekdays. The Wippells cassock I bought many years ago was much more expensive than either of the Roman tailors and has not been at all as durable. It'll go to the dry cleaners and then into the servers' sacristy. Several of the boys are as tall as I am (not difficult) and I'm sure one of them will "bag" it.

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