Robin McKinley's Blog, page 77
November 6, 2012
Mostly bell ringing. And a little hobgoblin.
Okay, I’m only going to say this once: OBAMA IS GOING TO WIN.*
We will now move smartly on to the standard topics of this blog**. Like bell ringing.*** Tilda has been here the last couple of days and I’ve been taking her bell ringing.† Okay, we also had a very nice hellhound hurtle this morning†† but mainly if you have a bell ringer visiting you you want to ring bells. She even carried Pavlova’s crate up the horrible winding stairs at South Desuetude last night. And we got through a plain course of Stedman Triples and then I screwed up the Cambridge minor ARRRRRRRRGH.†††
So we went off to Fustian this evening with me in a less than confident mood. I still feel I’m taking advantage, going to Fustian’s ‘improvers’ practise‡ at all. I had asked in advance if I could bring Tilda, but I was sure they’d be happy to have her, she can ring.‡‡ But when we got there there were only eight of us‡‡‡ so in fact Tilda and I were contributing. And I am improving . . . sloooooowly, like glacially slowly . . . but I am. Although I suspect the only reason they didn’t take me off the Grandsire triples tonight while the other loose cannon was ringing was because if they did they couldn’t ring it at all. And the only way I learn ANYTHING is by GRIND. The only way I will ever learn the wretched eight-bell rhythm is by ringing eight-bell methods for 1,000,000 hours, and I’m still in my first hundred thousand.
Our triumph of the evening however was the London minor: with the two genuine beginners standing out the only surprise they could ring at all was minor, and that only if they risked me on the treble. It took us three tries—and it wasn’t me that frelled it up, although a steadier treble might well have pulled us through—but we did it. So both Tilda and I got to come back to lamb chops at the mews feeling that we’d accomplished something. And I feel a little less like I’m taking advantage.
* * *
* In spite of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and blah. I agree that he’s fouled up some important stuff. But anybody in that worst job in the world would mess up important stuff, and I prefer his brand of screw-up to his opponent’s by about forty light-years.
I furthermore hope it’s not as close a race as some of the media wants (breathlessly) to say that it is. As someone tweeted/retweeted some time in the last few days, it’s in the media’s interests to make it sound like a cliffhanger. So I hope it’s an ordinary, dead boring landslide for Obama. And his Secretary of State.^
Wait a minute. Assuming Obama wins and that he doesn’t instantly fire everybody, she’s going to quit her job, you know, job, to spend the next four years getting organised and campaigning for the Democratic nomination next time?+ What is wrong with this picture?
+ And, sorry, but spare me another frelling political memoir.
** This is another of those Warning: too much information footnotes.
The hellterror’s bowel habits are making me CRAZY. She doesn’t want to hang around long enough to crap, she wants her treat now, and then she wants to go back indoors where the toys and the FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD are. I have to guess if she’s likely due a crap and then oblige her to remain in one of her Chosen Toilet Areas and wait on events. And wait. And wait. She will be pelting around frantically while clearly displaying what I indelicately refer to as a Pending Asshole—and because one does not want a hellterror to develop an End of Lead mania, one is constantly picking the pelting little ratbag up and plonking her back down where one wants her . . . and it’ll still be SEVERAL MINUTES before she gives up and craps. Arrrrrrrrrgh. Remind me why I wanted another dog.
*** Illumina
I’ve just been listening to an odd piece of news on Radio 4 – firemen had to be called out to rescue a bellringer; apparently a woman in her 50s got tangled in the ropes and was suspended 20ft in the air…. and I’m ashamed to admit that my thoughts immediately jumped to you! I’m sure however that your descriptions of belltower ignominy are purely for comedic effect and nothing like this would ever happen (plus it was in Somerset so my fears were allayed!).
SIIIIIIIIIGH. Yes, it got on the gagblasted national news—it was on the Radio Three one o’clock news, and Radio 3 is not a big news station, nor does it generally go for the cranky stuff and I think they could have passed on this one. Yes, accidents happen, including in bell towers, and bells are great big heavy objects which is why you need careful training to ring them. I don’t in the least understand from the description what exactly happened, or why it was able to happen—usually if you’re still cluelessly cack-handed you’ll have a minder at your elbow ready to grab the rope if you show signs of trying to strangle yourself or your neighbours with it. But people learn handling at different speeds and there’s also the decision about backing off and letting a learner get on with it before you convince her that she’s hopeless which is why you’re still there looming at her.
My best guess is that, after three months, she was generally capable of ringing rounds on her own—and she was unlucky. Usually when you miss your grab the rope sidewinds a bit like a snake preparing to strike and you, your face painfully hot from the blush of embarrassment, catch it next time and start ringing like mad to get it back where it belongs. Occasionally someone bounds across the ringing chamber and snatches it away from you—brings it under control and hands the rope back to you saying ‘don’t worry, it happens to everybody’. And it does. She was unlucky. That’s all. As dangerous sports go, bell ringing is pretty much neck and neck with tiddlywinks. Hey, you could choke on a wink, you know.
And yes, I was once carried briskly toward the (high) ceiling at East Pernickety when I broke the stay and the bell went backwards over the balance and started dragging the rope, with me still attached, upwards. I’ve told you this story. It was when I was learning to ring the first time, before the ME knocked me over. Let go! Let go! everyone cried, and I hadn’t got far enough up to damage myself from the fall when I finally managed to unclamp my hands from the rope and drop back to the floor—because THE VERY FIRST THING THEY TELL YOU, AND THEY TELL YOU REPEATEDLY, IS NEVER LET GO OF THE TAIL END. NEVER. By the time you’ve been ringing long enough to not have a minder, who will also grab the rope if you let go, never letting go is so established it’s hard to override. The important part of this story is that I had barely frelling touched the stay—some OTHER EVEN CLUMSIER beginner had spent an entire practise crashing into it (they told me after), and it was as we now knew already cracked and ready to split. Mind you a good ringer never touches the stay in the first place—and a good ringer was put on that stayless bell for the rest of that evening—but . . .
† She’s going home tomorrow, the coward. If she stayed tomorrow night I could take her to the abbey. If she stayed over Thursday or Friday she could ring handbells.
†† Er . . . afternoon.
††† We’re going to call that being over-tired from the EXCITEMENT OF MY FIRST VOICE LESSON in four months or whatever it’s been. Like the getting out of bed too late to take poor stoic hellhounds for a proper morning hurtle was. Fortunately the hellterror isn’t up to proper hurtles at all yet.
‡ Now that they’re including frelling surprise, it’s no longer beginners’ practise but improvers’. Feh.
‡‡ Including frelling surprise.
‡‡‡ Plus a wounded ringing master who could mind but he couldn’t ring.
November 5, 2012
Singing again
SHE’S GOING TO LET ME WORK ON EVENING HYMN!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAY! SHE’S GOING TO LET ME WORK ON DIDO’S LAMENT! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!
Ahem. First voice lesson today was nowhere near as dire as I was expecting. I was expecting dire. I told you that I’d got all solemn and mature and responsible a month or so ago and decided (solemnly and responsibly) that even if Nadia started up again (and she’d left in the summer saying that she hoped she’d be teaching again before Christmas) with the puppy coming and the pressing need to get on with work* I would not, repeat not, consider starting again till the new year. Uh-huh. That pledge lasted about two-thirds of a second after Nadia’s email offering me a slot arrived.
Meanwhile . . . I have not been behaving responsibly. I can’t remember how much of this got on the blog, but after Nadia went on maternity leave** I had a great hedonistic wallow in unsuitable opera. It’s very hard not to want to sing, however inadequately, music that is engraved on your heart, and if your voice teacher suddenly leaves you on your own with the splendid manifesto, Enjoy your singing!, you may allow yourself to stray into paths of unrighteousness. And singing stuff that’s engraved on your heart means you don’t have to learn the frelling tune first. I don’t have the top end for high soprano, but there’s plenty of mezzo for me to get in trouble with.*** So I sang both Cherubino’s big arias, the totally barking Azucena frothing at the mouth in Stride la vampa which is huge fun, my personal unattainable grail Una voce poco fa which is Rosina saying all you blokes I’m going to win this one, Che Faro of course, and Dido’s Lament. I’d started to look at Dido officially with Blondel, but I couldn’t hold that top ‘G’ yet—and it’s a horribly naked G, even if you can dance on it without strain, like the mere top F in Che Faro still usually scares me into a screech† even though the note itself is no big deal.
Then I calmed down a little and started trying to do what Nadia had suggested, which included a Purcell song, Love quickly is pall’d. Which reminded me of Evening Hymn, which I had worked on with Blondel and decided to look at again because I love love it. And then Stuff Got in The Way and I started singing less and less—except when out hurtling with hellhounds, but even that’s been less than previously since we’re spending way too much time on in-town hurtles to avoid ratbag off-lead dogs—and then I began to notice how much less noise I was making, and how much thinner the noise was without Nadia taking me apart and putting me back together in a new improved schema every week. At which point singing morale went downhill fast and besides I had this novel to finish writing.
But this last week, when I knew I was going to be seeing Nadia again, what came out of the ridiculously tall pile of vocal music beside the piano? Purcell’s Evening Hymn. What the doodah. I knocked some of the dust off a couple of old pieces that had been less unsuccessful than others because I was assuming we were going to have to drop back a few leagues and have a fresh run at this singing thing, but I also took Evening Hymn with me today thinking that I would beg and plead to be allowed to work on it, I’m only doing any of this for fun, you know? So why not work on something I adore, if it’s not going to give Nadia migraines and heartburn? But I tried to prepare myself for the possibility of migraines and heartburn, and having to stick to Love quickly is pall’d, which is a perfectly nice song, but . . .
The first thing that happened†† was that Nadia got me singing again in about ten minutes. How does she DO that??? And she gave me some more warm-ups which is good not only because all warm-up exercises are always good, but because even the ones you like you get bored with eventually†††. And then she asked me what I’d been singing and I said, Er. Um. But when I humbly pulled Evening Hymn out she said, Oh, I love that. Yes, you can sing that.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we worked on that and it was WONDERFUL. YAAAAAAAAAY. And then she said almost in passing, you can sing Dido too. Why don’t you bring it in next time?
* * *
* And frelling doodles.^ Arrrgh. SHADOWS is effectively done, but I’m still wrestling with a few editorial queries. And then there looms the vast terrifying cliff of PEG II and III. But I didn’t want to write a trilogy. I NEVER WANTED TO WRITE A TRILOGY. Allow me to moan once again that I do not know how these endless-series people do it. I think I must be missing a crucial chromosome.
^ I wonder if I could teach some hellcritter to doodle? Darkness clearly has an artistic soul.
** He’s^ HUGE. He’s only three months old but he looks about ready to start kindergarten.
^ I’m naming him Renfrew. When I choose a blog name I usually look up the meaning and do a quick google against the possibility that some horribly embarrassing person has the name. There don’t seem to be any headline-grabbing politicians, bank managers or porn stars named Renfrew, so that’s all right. But the meanings vary more than usual. As a surname, it’s Scottish. As a first name, it’s Welsh, and it may mean ‘raven woods’ or ‘calm river’. Maybe the ravens like water. Maybe Renfrew will grow up to be confusing and multi-faceted.
*** I am surprised at myself that I have no desire to sing Carmen, even for silly at home with Peter asleep^ and only the hellcritters listening. I adore the opera, it is one of those big fabulous roles that every big fabulous mezzo must sing, and it’s not like I have anything against self-destructive sexuality, I’d sing Violetta like a shot if I had the upper register for it. But Carmen? Nah. Not my girl.
^ Although this is not reliable. I am very grateful that he is a doting husband and thinks I sound nice.
† Sigh.
†† No, before that, Nadia’s mum came in with Nadia’s daughter, who wanted to say hello to me. I had no idea I had even registered with Stella, but it’s not unpleasing to have a three-year-old grinning happily at you like you’ve been best friends since birth. And that was before she found out about the small furry hobgoblin in the car.
††† Like puppies and their toys. We all want NEW and SHINY.
* * *
Here are two of my favourite Didos. I recommend you don’t watch either of them: the Baker shows its age pretty badly, and while the sound quality does too, that voice comes through magnificently. And they’ve got Norman up as some kind of galactic goddess and spare me. But again, the voice, the voice.
Janet Baker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_50zj7J50U
Jessye Norman http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=jOIAi2XwuWo&feature=endscreen
And my two, possibly eccentric, favourites of Evening Hymn of those easily found on YouTube:
Ian Howell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e71cc85rKY8
Julie Carlston http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTh2lJglpLU
November 4, 2012
What all my blog posts are about recently
There are one or two other things going on in my life right now . . . but the hellterror makes the best blog copy. I was out with the hellhounds this afternoon and for the however-manyth time I’ve been hurtling since this particular pair of jeans* came out of the drawer, I was thinking, I’ve now got frelling leg warmers I need to frelling well remember to wear them. Except that I also need to remember to take them OFF again before the hellterror, with the little hellstiletto teeth, emerges from her crate. I know you’re not supposed to allow your puppy to do this, that and the other thing, but they really do grow out of a lot of their crazy-making bad behaviours** and so I guess wrong about what they’re going to grow out of occasionally, eh, my problems with the hellhounds are not about my having been insufficiently fierce with them when they were puppies, and you could spend your entire life removing the puppy from doing whatever she’s doing which would get sad fast for both of you. So one of the things Pavlova likes to do is latch onto my jeans legs and pull. When we’re out for one of our erratic walks this is actually rather desirable behaviour because it means I know where she is. Little rocket puppy underfoot is dangerous . . . and as I said yesterday I think, one or two things at a time. At the moment I chiefly want her to go forward in the same direction (more or less) that I’m going, and not to have tantrums on the end of her lead.** We’ll worry about which side she should stay on later. Meanwhile we both have to live that long.
EMoon
Guilty confession time: bull terriers never appealed to me until now. I didn’t like the head shape. But I’ve changed; I repent my earlier artistic ignorance and am now converted to…”That’s a very interesting shape of considerable appeal, when it’s on Pavlova.” And the picture of [Missy and Pavlova], large and small…OK, I get it finally. It’s a geometric sort of shape, and quite appealing. Starting with the tiny puppy version really did help.
CathyR
*confesses meekly* – me too.
Change in perspective also helped by the fact that she is not just any anonymous puppy, but she’s Pavlova!! And hence special in any case.
Snork. Yes, you get fond of things/people/critters you wouldn’t dream of getting fond of if you weren’t being helplessly boosted in that direction by (say) a friend with a new puppy. And most baby things are cute by definition so you get kind of used to the grown-up version gradually as they grow in that direction.†
Bull terriers can be an acquired taste or a coup de foudre or possibly both. I had thought the head shape was weird, weird, weird till I met my first one up close and personal . . . a few months after I moved over here. She was a white bitch and utterly charming and suddenly bull terriers were on my short list of dogs I’d love to own. Destiny was clearly at work. I’ve told you about assuming I never would, however, because the fighting-dog background makes me nervous about finding a breeder I can trust to be breeding for the right things, however many Crufts trophies they’ve won. But—possibly because I was already a convert—I was pretty staggered by how beautiful Southdowner’s bullies are, particularly the bitches, which includes Olivia’s Lavvy. You don’t have to know spit about bull terriers to see ‘well bred’ scintillating all over them. The photos I’ve posted of Lavvy are of her goofballing for the camera because she’s 100% ham, but she’s also a drop-dead gorgeous dog. I haven’t really caught Missy at her best either—she’s too busy mugging for cheese—and Missy had a Tragic Youth so you have to be gentle with her. But seeing her standing tall and straight and alert and proud will make your heart stop (briefly). And Pavlova is going to look just like her. Except even MORE gorgeous.††
* * *
* I like them TOO LONG. I like them to come down well over the tops of my All Stars. But I think I’ve moaned to you before about the geometrically increasing difficulty of finding jeans in my size. There are MILLIONS of jeans out there and I’m sure my Perfect Brand exists somewhere, but after you’ve either tried on or ordered and sent back about a dozen pairs you start losing the will to live, or I do. I like clothes because they’re fun. I don’t like having to work at it. There are plenty of other things in my life I have to work at.^ So I’ve got one particular pair of black jeans that are basically crap but they’ll do although I’m not going to buy any more of them. And they look all right, but in terms of THE WIND WHISTLING UP YOUR PANT LEGS they are TOO SHORT.
^ Bell ringing for example. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. Sunday afternoon service ring at the abbey. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. Well, nobody died. So far as I know there wasn’t even any blood spilt, although I think Albert may have rammed the wall with his head once or twice.
Vicky—she of New Arcadia—comes to afternoon service ring at the abbey not infrequently. We are excruciatingly polite to each other, or anyway that’s what’s happening on my end. With the exception of a few personal friends most of my ex-colleagues at the New Arcadia tower make me JUMPY AS GIMBLASTICON.+ And if I may say so the last thing I need is further instigations to jumpiness at the frelling abbey, although I am sure this is very character building.++ But Vicky did me a very good turn today: there’s a little half-day ringing seminar next Saturday that I would have wanted to go to if I had known about it which didn’t get up on the board at the abbey due to administrative error and Vicky told me. Oh. Thanks. So I launched a running tackle at Albert, who is going to be overseeing the seminar, and he agreed (hoarsely) that if I’d remove the lasso from around his neck he would add my name to the list. YAAAAAAY.+++
So as I was winding up my lasso again# Vicky approached me in a restrained and delicate matter. Will you be ringing here next Sunday morning? she said. No, I said, I only ring here in the afternoons. Vicky took a deep breath. Thendoyousupposeyoucouldring 10to10:30 atOldEdenextSundayitwouldbeVERY HELPFULwe’reVERYSHORT.
I blinked. Sure, I said. I could do that.
+ Ie very jumpy
++ But it’s not doing my RINGING any good AT ALL.
+++ I need more stuff to do. But it’s at a tower with nice friendly bells IN A CIRCLE and I may make less of a fool of myself than sometimes.
# Note that I finished winding up a hank of yarn last night that did NOT run amok, which makes a change, although it woke up to its human-enraging responsibilities at the very last minute and tried but there wasn’t enough loose yarn left to make a really kill-me-now tangle. I WANT A BALL WINDER. AND A SWIFT. I WANT MORE MONEY IN MY BANK ACCOUNT.
** With occasional reversions just to remind you they can, like Chaos, mid-leap, balancing himself by his front feet on my chest so he can lick my face.
*** Rowan was a nightmare about this. I began to think I never would train her to lead. And yet she was the one who popped both cruciate ligaments and whom I retrained to use the frelling leg after the (EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE) surgery by mere bullying, poor critter—I took her for walks on lead, saying in my best enforcer voice, Put. It. Down. Like she had any reason to know what I was saying. But she looked at me . . . and started putting that foot down. I think possibly because of that early face-off about walking on lead, which in her mind I guess she lost, so she took a deep tragic breath and ‘lost’ about this too, bless her furry little soul. Rowan was one of life’s victims. She’d have been happy to tell you all about it.
† The way, for example, some in-law or other is clearly the antichrist^. And twenty-one years later you realise they’ve become a good friend and they’d be someone you could ring if you were in trouble. How did that happen?
^ Naming no names or anything.
†† I’ve been trying to get frelling Olivia or frelling Southdowner to send me a good picture of Croissant, who really is another gorgeous puppy. If one of them ever does I will immediately post it here. Have I mentioned that her new owner is besotted? Well of course.
November 3, 2012
Ridiculous
Puppies are. The other reason besides that they’re cute that you don’t KILL THEM* is because they make you laugh.** Sometimes the ridiculousness is situational. The hobgoblin and I were out today*** walking† in town so she could meet more people and I clocked that there was a craft fair on in the village hall. Excellent. Cheap Christmas presents. So after she’d had her meagre permitted ten minutes of walking/lurching/hurtling I picked her up and we went to the craft fair.
Where she met even more people. One of them said, what is she?, and I said, English bull terrier†† and he said, I thought that’s what she looked like, but she’s so small. Yes! I said eagerly. SMALL! She’s a MINI! She’s going to STAY SMALL EVEN WHEN SHE GROWS UP! —So clearly I had to buy something at this stall because such perspicacity inevitably must produce artful craft to a very high standard. I had come out without my wallet but I usually have a note or two tucked somewhere about my person . . . the ‘tucked’ part not being an issue except when you’re carrying a puppy. I didn’t want to put her down; she’d get trodden on, and even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t enjoy being ankle-high in a dark forest of giants. So after I’d found several Christmas presents I had to start fishing for cash, shifting Pavlova from arm to arm—it’s a pity she’s going to be too big for this performance soon, because we’ve got the drill down now that I can clamp her between one arm and my side and still have both hands (relatively) free—till the bloke who’d asked what she was said he’d hold her if that was okay with her/me. So I passed her over to her transcendent delight—I am QUEEN! And I WELCOME NEW SLAVES!!—and got my emergency††† money out at which point he had to pass her back because his wife wanted him to check her addition. Then I gave her to him again while I dealt with my change. . . .
It’s all socialisation. It’s all good.
Giboppmar
I know that I could just google “hucklebutting” (fantastic name, by the way)—but are there any chances of us getting a video? That would just make my day.
Well this is slightly more probable than it was when you posted this, because I’ve finally found the plug-in thing to recharge the battery on my little video camera.‡ And I’ll have a go. But I don’t think it’s likely to be nearly as funny on video as it is in real life, judging from the hucklebutting videos already out there. The silliness of it doesn’t really come over, it just looks like some dog running around and, so? Part of this is that since most of it is taken from above, human being standing or sitting and aiming down at hucklebutting bullie, you don’t catch the true effect of the preliminary dropping down, so it’s almost more of a high-speed scuttle than a run. But if you get down to bullie level yourself to capture this you will be hucklebutted, which could be painful and will probably not result in high-quality footage. But I’ll give it a try.
It is a great verb, isn’t it? I hope whoever invented it is proud of themselves.
* * *
* I was thinking how much they’re like humans.^ The dog books all tell you to swap puppies’ toys around so they don’t get bored looking at the same ones and having all of them equally available, they’ll get jaded.^^ And if you can afford it you might want to produce an absolutely new toy at intervals.^^^ That’s just like us.^^^^ I have ENOUGH books, yarn and opera recordings. NOOOOOOOO. NEVER ENOUGH. I want the new and the shiny! Just like a three-month-old puppy!
^ Humans as opposed to people because of course dogs+ are people
+ and [insert your sort of critter here]
^^ Precocious things, puppies, already able to generate jadedness at three months.+
+ Some mum of humans is going to say that human pup—I mean babies are just the same. I think there are probably fewer puppies that have to be talked out of taking their favourite toy, the one that used to be a large orange and black plush tiger and now looks like a bag of mouldy oatmeal with mysterious lumpy appendages, to their first day of school.# I admit that I know a lot more about dog babies than I do about human babies.
# And I have never heard of a dog taking a favourite babyhood toy/bag of mouldy oatmeal secretly in the bottom of a suitcase to college.&
& Yes. But Algernon was in pretty good shape.
^^^ Different textures of towels and dustcloths with knots tied in the middle work surprisingly well. I’ve yet to have a puppy demand Tiffany.
^^^^ I’m assuming there are no ascetics reading this blog.+
+ If there are . . . oh dear.
** Most dogs grow out of this to a greater or lesser degree.^ Bull terriers get funnier.
^ Darkness, mostly. Poor thing has the responsibilities of the world on his shoulders. Chaos, not much. As witness the last photo from the other night.
*** After the hellhounds and I had the most tremendous riot over a piece of golden autumnal countryside WITH NO ONE ELSE ON IT except a few rabbits. Which fortunately the hellhounds did not see.
† Well walking is possibly an exaggeration. We proceed in a series of lurches. At this age I mainly want her liking going for ‘walks’ and learning to accept the lead without really noticing that’s what’s happening. This makes for uneven progress.
†† In my continuing quest to help metamorphose the bull terrier’s reputation from savage killer to friendly goofball, I have found that mysteriously the addition of ‘English’ in front of ‘bull terrier’ seems to mean that fewer people back away from you slowly, looking frantically around for a tree to climb. I wouldn’t put it past a bull terrier to learn to climb a tree, but I don’t tell the backers-away this.
††† There are emergencies and emergencies. I also bought some pink buttons for future knitting projects. It is good to be prepared.
‡ I know Pooka has video capability but life is too complicated, not to mention that iPhone video is usually pretty dire. In theory I know how to make the videocam talk to other tech. In theory.
November 2, 2012
KES, 51
FIFTY ONE
My heart sank. She had a name, she was known, she belonged to someone—someone who, if they were trying to catch her, wanted her back. Although if she belonged to someone, why would she rather stay on the street in this weather and let herself get filthy and emaciated than be captured? Why wasn’t she wearing a collar with a tag? And why had she flinched at the sight of my belt? I hadn’t caught her. I’d left the door open and she’d come in.
I’d given her a name.
Okay, hold on. I’d been right the first time. I was supposed to go to the pound and find a dog the normal way. I could go to the pound this afternoon and lumber myself with a dog immediately, before I was anything like ready or set up for a dog, if I had to have a dog. I could do it now, as soon as I’d made the phone call to her owner, or maybe I’d make Bridget do the phoning because of the sudden lump in my throat, and maybe I could have my breakfast indoors in the warm if her owner came for her immediately. There was no doubt a perfectly reasonable explanation for her reaction to my belt.
I wasn’t hungry any more.
Sid shuffled her butt over till she was leaning against my leg, and put her head on my lap. I told myself I should push it off (gently), there was no future in flirting with a married dog, but the pushing hand was somehow mysteriously stroking the top of her head. Sid shut her eyes.
“Well she’s sure got you where she wants you,” said Bridget. “Good. We’ve all been really worried about her. She is a her, isn’t she? She turned up in the middle of winter, for pity’s sake. There was three feet of snow on the ground. The dog warden couldn’t get near her. We were all trying to catch her because she was going to die. The town rats probably love her because I’m sure she didn’t eat all the food that was put out for her. And nobody ever figured out where she was sleeping.” Bridget was still standing holding her tray, but she didn’t look like Mistress of Tea. She looked like Soppy Animal Lady watching a happy ending. I hoped she was right. “Obviously she’s been waiting for you.”
“You sound like you have dogs,” I said.
“Yes. Three. Three and a half. I think I’m about to have four. My daughter’s away at college and I am willing to bet her first job won’t pay her enough to afford a place that takes dogs. Have you named her?”
“Sid,” I said. Sid opened her eyes.
“Well, Sid,” said Bridget, “I’m happy to meet you.” She took the last two steps to the table cautiously, but Sid didn’t move, although one eye and one ear followed her. Bridget put the tray down and offered the end of the cord to me. I plugged it in one-handed because my left hand was still fully occupied stroking my dog.
“Do you need a recommendation for a vet?” said Bridget. “Jim Cuthbert is two blocks from here and he’ll be delighted that he can stop feeding the local rats. I take my crowd to him. My kids liked him better than their pediatrician. Better quality of lollipops.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I could phone him now,” said Bridget. “And see if he could fit you in. He will, as soon as he finds out it’s the Phantom.”
“Okay. Thanks,” I said again, but my stomach wasn’t happy. I knew we had to go to the vet. But what if . . . No what-if mattered. We had to go to the vet and the sooner the better.
“And I’ll find her something to lie on. It’s still too cold for a dog that skinny.”
Bridget went back indoors. There were two tea cosies on the plugged-in tray. I lifted the one with water lilies on it and there was a polka-dot teapot and the red dragon mug. I lifted the other and was ravished by the smell of warm bran muffin fabulously soggy with melted butter. I had eaten all of it and was restraining myself from offering my buttery fingers to Sid to lick (I was not going to have a beggar dog, I was not) when Bridget re-emerged with an armful of blankets. “One of them is for you,” she said, and draped it around my shoulders. She dropped two more to the ground next to Sid and then knelt down to fluff them up. Sid lifted her head to watch. “Hello, Sid,” said Bridget. Sid unrolled about two feet of tongue and licked Bridget’s nose. She settled down on the blankets with a little dog-purr and put her head on my feet.
“Jim is thrilled,” said Bridget, standing up again. “He’ll see you whenever you can get over there. I said you hadn’t had breakfast yet. He says that’s fine, and not to rush the Eatsmobile experience. So now that you’re both warm and comfy, what else can I bring you?”
November 1, 2012
Darkness, Chaos and Mayhem descend on Third House
You should be trembling. Are you trembling? I can wait while you go read some Lovecraft to put yourself in the right mood.
I apologise for the appallingness of the photography. Sigh. The daylight was against me because the demarcations of dark and light were unhelpfully extreme, but the main thing is that I can’t figure out how to turn on the ‘sports’ setting on my gorblimey camera. I thought it was on, but clearly (or rather, fuzzily) it was not. This is another one of these ARRRRRGH situations: I’ve only recently figured out how to turn the flash on. It’s like six steps which you have follow exactly and I don’t do ANYTHING exactly.* I want to do something like flick a switch and it FIRES. There are too many buttons, dials, screens, knobs, pop-outs, status boxes and poltergeists to this camera. Somewhere there is an Ariadne with a ball of yarn to help me find the heart of the sports-setting labyrinth but she hasn’t turned up yet.
Meanwhile you will have to accept these as blurry proof of the declared topic. I’ve decided, that’s DECIDED that some of action shots which are mostly smudge should nonetheless be included because they give you the idea.
YAAAAAAH! RAAAAAAAAH! GAAAAAAAAAH!
Hmm. This one originally had a caption reading ETC. As in havoc, anarchy, pandemonium.
Darkness, who is getting on for four times her size (although she’s catching up fast), is intimidated. Herself is NOT intimidated.
Now listen, kid, I’m telling you this for your own good. None of this BOUNCING indoors, okay? You’re scaring poor Darkness, who has delicate nerves.
She is totally convinced that the hellhounds are her FAMILY.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE.
Darkness just doesn’t want to get too close, but Chaos was chasing her the way a daddy will let a toddler run faster than him.
I am QUEEEEEEEN. All BOW DOWN BEFORE ME.
And a good time was had by all. Sort of. Darkness, honey, we KNOW there’s a puppy.
In which Chaos proves that HE is the REAL puppy. And the real puppy is nonplussed. In the next frame, which I failed to get, she is DELIGHTED.
* * *
* Including raising puppies. I’ve decided three dogs is a lot of dogs. The whippets were smaller. And I was younger. And Peter still went for long walks too.
October 31, 2012
A Bully Halloween
First practise at the abbey in something like a month tonight . . . and I don’t have to fall on my sword. Hurrah. Progress.*
The weather’s been dubious to downright hostile all day; when the rain let up on my way to the abbey I knew I’d get a parking space in the abbey car park and not have to park at the bottom end of town. But at present if I didn’t know better I’d say that Sandy had sent a minion to the south of England, who is out there blasting the storm drains and ripping up sheds and paving stones right now. I traditionally find weather like this kind of cozy—so long as current fauna, in this case the hellhounds, have been out fairly recently: they can keep their legs crossed a long time if necessary, and I would probably die of the dirty looks if I tried to make them go out in it—but I am presently hampered by a small hobgoblin** with an unpredictable eliminatory schedule. A small hobgoblin being suppressed on my lap just now, and requiring me to type . . . sort of one and a half handed. She’s so much bigger than she was three weeks ago*** that I can mostly suppress her with an elbow, so long as she is recognising the concept of suppression at that moment, but it’s still difficult to type with the heel of one hand glued to the blank space below the keyboard edge of my laptop.
CathyR
PamAdams wrote on Mon, 15 October 2012 23:08
Three guesses as to who is going to be leading this pack!
Do you think we need as many as three?!
No. Next question. I realise, sheepishly, that aside from the lovely swathe of tummy for rubbing on a bitch, it’s just pleasing to have another girl around.† It’s now two against two. The boys don’t stand a chance.††
Diane in MN
It would be nice if puppies got solid sphincter control at about the same time as they figured out what outdoors is for, but it’s never happened that way with any puppy I’ve known.
And then there’s the weather. Who would stand around outside to do their business when they have a nice warm comfy crate indoors with hot and cold running slaves who will CHANGE THE NEWSPAPER? I did manage to get her outside for the evening crap, but . . . she can just pee in the crate tonight. I don’t like standing around outdoors in this stuff either.†††
Anne_d
Chaos is actually getting out of bed and playing with her? Wow, Chaos is a very good Hellhound uncle indeed. Perhaps they’ll like her better once she slows down a bit, say, less than the speed of light?
I realised that poor Chaos is trying to teach her to play. She just goes gonzo as soon as he gets within berserker puppy range. But I caught him doing play-bows in front of her crate, and I don’t think he was teasing her—I think he was saying, like this, you twerp.
I need to get them all back up to Third House’s garden and let them sort it out. But Southdowner warned me that I needed to get the holes in the fence mended before the hobgoblin found out where they were because she’d then just go through the mended fence knowing there was a hole there. Atlas finished hammering in the double-annealed, triple-case-hardened steel posts yesterday—plus putting chicken wire over the frelling pond—but now it has to stop raining elephants and hippopotamuses.
Mangan_nina
My vet turned me on to canned pumpkin, and I always have some in the house. For reasons unknown, it seems to fix whichever problem they are having, too runny or too stuck! And? Dogs like to eat it! Just give her a big spoonful about 2 times a day, and see if that helps her bowels settle down? It’s worked beautifully on my Chihuahua, my Sheltie and the Dachshund from hell…
It’s on order. I am relieved to say. Back when I still had a metabolism and liked to eat things with calories in them I tried to find tinned pumpkin over here for Robin’s Fabulous Pumpkin Bread and Ginger Pumpkin Pie and the health-food shop finally ordered me some from France. But the UK is now apparently importing good old American Libby’s. Assuming it arrives, of course, and the UK web site listing it (and, just by the way, taking my money for it) is not a snare and a delusion to sadden the exile with the erratic puppy.
I’d forgotten about pumpkin. You’re about the third person who’s mentioned it. Thanks. I’m pretty sure I tried it on the hellhounds, but they had a specific problem.
Now I should have some kind of jack-o-lantern topic bridge here—Other Interesting Uses of Pumpkins—but I have to go sing in the hopes of not totally embarrassing myself next Monday. And clearly this is how tonight’s post must end:
SarahAllegra
“Everyone, lookit the bully in his Halloween costume!!”
http://pinterest.com/pin/516647388471940131/
* * *
* We are not talking anything too glamorous, mind you. The usual suspects stumbled through a little better than sometimes is all. But I rang plain hunt on forty-seven on one of the middle bells. After coming disastrously unstuck a while ago from a middle bell—I know plain hunt is the same frelling idiot-simple pattern over and over and over, but I can’t count that high, and as soon as I lose my count I lose my place—I’ve been clinging to the front where it’s harder to go wrong even if you do miss your count. But the problem with eleventy-jillion bells is that there are way too many possibilities. You can ring the front forty-eight (forty-seven plus tenor-behind) or the back forty-eight or any slice of middle forty-eights so long as the ‘tune’ sounds nice. I grabbed what I thought was going to be the two and it turned out to be the twenty-nine (or so). Eeep, I said, or anyway thought, but it was practise night so what the doodah. And it was okay. Yaaay. One more small pathetic mark down in the corner of a very large chalkboard labelled Mastering Method Bell Ringing, sigh.
I also managed to treble-bob to Kent minor, but I can do six bells, even at the abbey, more or less, sometimes. Theoretically I can ring it inside—but almost certainly not at the abbey. But when Gemma had a turn on the treble I stood behind the three to watch . . . and promptly got horribly lost, not because of the whole ringing-in-a-queue thing that makes ropesight at the abbey such a challenge, but because I’m trying to learn the three-four to Kent minor on handbells and my brain overheated and started presenting random verses from Jabberwocky instead of the method line.
** Happy Halloween. Only the trick-or-treaters going as deep sea divers or goldfish are at all happy tonight.
*** THREE WEEKS. IT’S ONLY BEEN THREE WEEKS AND THREE DAYS.
† Don’t ask me what this means. I don’t know. It’s probably Species Confusion and appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders on page 1071.
†† Unless Peter decides to suffer Species Confusion also and go all Gender Solidarity-ist. Feh.
††† I used to lose Rowan in the snowdrifts in Maine. Well, she was white, with brindle spots. The spots could easily have been rocks dug up by an overenthusiastic plow.
October 30, 2012
EARTH AND AIR by Peter Dickinson
I was told 30 October is the OFFICIAL pub day at Small Beer Press.
http://smallbeerpress.com/books/2012/10/22/earth-and-air/
In today’s modern ebook and internet world publication days aren’t what they used to be, but I wanted to make more noise about Peter’s new book anyway so today will do fine. I’ve already posted a few excerpts, stand by for a few more. This is from RIDIKI:
. . . “Horned viper,” said Papa Alexi, when he showed him. “Got her on the tongue, see? Vicious bite he’s got. Much worse than the common one. Kill a strong man. Bad luck, Steff, very bad luck. Nice dog.”
He carried her on and laid her down beside the fig-tree, covering her body with the old sack she used to sleep on in the corner by the mule-shed. He tied the fig branches out of his way, fetched a crowbar and spade and sweated the rest of the afternoon away prodding and scooping and chopping through roots, picking out the larger rocks from the spoil and setting them aside. When the farm woke and people started to come and go, some of them asked what he was up to. He just grunted and worked on.
By sunset the hole was as deep as the reach of his arm. He changed her everyday collar for her smart red Sunday one with the brass studs, wrapped her in the sack and lowered her into the grave. Gently he covered her with the larger rocks he’d kept, fitting them together according to their shapes and then ramming earth between them in a double layer, proof against any possible scavenger.
Finally he filled in the hole and spread what was left of the spoil back under the fig. The stars were bright by the time he fetched a small flask of oil from the barrel in the larder and poured it slowly over her grave.
“Good-bye, Ridiki.” he said. “Good-bye.”
He scattered the remaining handful of earth over the grave, let the fig-branches back to hide and shelter it, and turned away.
The evening meal was long over, but he couldn’t have eaten. He sat until almost midnight on the boulder beside the vegetable patch with her old collar spread between his hands and his thumbs endlessly caressing the wrinkled leather. The constellations wheeled westward and the lights of the fishing-boats moved quietly around Thasos. When he was sure that there’d be no one about to speak to him he coiled the collar tightly in on itself, put it in his shirt pocket, went up to his cot in the loft over the store room and lay down, knowing he wouldn’t sleep.
But he did, and dreamed. He was following Ridiki along a track at the bottom of an unfamiliar valley, narrow and rocky. She was trotting ahead with the curious prancing gait her bent leg gave her, her whole attitude full of amused interest, ears pricked up and cupped forward, tail waving above her back, as if she expected something new and fascinating to appear round the next corner, some odour she could nose into, some little rustler she could pounce on in a tussock beside the path—pure Ridiki, Ridiki electric with life.
The track turned, climbed steeply. Ridiki danced up it. He scrambled panting after her. The cave seemed to appear out of nowhere. She trotted weightless towards it, while he toiled up, heavier and heavier. At the entrance she paused and looked back at him over her shoulder. He tried to call to her to wait, but no breath would come. She turned away and danced into the dark. When he reached the cave the darkness seemed to begin like a wall at the entrance. He called again and again. Not a whisper of an echo returned. He had to go, he couldn’t remember why.
“I’m coming back,” he told himself. “I’ll make sure I remember the way.”
But as he trudged sick-hearted along the valley everything kept shifting and changing. A twisted tree beside the track was no longer there when he looked back to fix its shape in his mind, and the whole landscape beyond where it should have been was utterly unlike any he had seen before.
At first light the two cocks crowed, as always, in raucous competition. He had grown used to sleeping through the racket almost since he’d first come to live on the farm, but this morning he shot fully awake and lay in the dim light of early dawn knowing he’d never see Ridiki again. . . .
All day that one moment of the dream—Ridiki vanishing into the dark, as sudden as a lamp going out—stayed like a shadow at the side of his mind. It didn’t change. He had a feeling both of knowing the place and of never having been there before. But if he tried to fix anything outside the single instant it was like grasping loose sand. The details trickled away before he could look at them.
He fetched his midday meal from the kitchen and ate it in the shade of the fig-tree, and then, while the farm settled down to its regular afternoon stillness, went to look for Papa Alexi.
Papa Alexi was Steff’s great-uncle, his grandfather’s brother. Being a younger son he’d had to leave the farm, and look for a life elsewhere. He wasn’t anyone’s father, but people called him Papa because he’d trained as a priest, but he’d stopped doing that to fight in the resistance, and then in the terrible civil wars that had followed. That was when he’d stopped believing what the priests had been teaching him, so he’d spent all his working life as a schoolmaster in Thessaloniki. He’d never married, but his sister, Aunt Nix, had housekept for him after her own husband had died. When he’d retired they’d both come back to live on the farm, in the old cottage where generations of other returning wanderers had come to end their days in the place where they’d been born.
The farm could afford to house them. There were other farms in the valley, as well as twenty or thirty peasant holdings, but Deniakis was much the largest, with Nikos and three other farm hands, and several women, on the pay-roll, working a large section of the fertile land along the river, orchards and vineyards, and a great stretch of the rough pasture above them running all the way up to the ridge.
Steff found papa Alexi as usual under the vine, reading and drowsing and waking to read again. To-day Aunt Nix was sitting opposite him with her cat on her lap and her lace-making kit beside her.
“You poor boy,” she said. “I know how it feels. It’s no use anyone saying anything, is it?”
Steff shook his head. He didn’t know how to begin. Papa Alexi marked his page with a vine-leaf and closed the book.
“But you wanted something from us all the same?” he said.
“Well . . . are there any caves up in the mountains near here? Big ones, I mean. Not like that one on the way to Crow’s Castle—you can see right to the back of that without going in.”
“Not that I know of,” said Papa Alexi.
“What about Tartaros?” said Aunt Nix. “That’s a really big, deep cave, Steff. It’s on the far side of Sunion. . . . Nanna Tasoula told me it used to be one of the entrances to the underworld. There was this nymph Zeus had his eye on, only his brother Dis got to her first and made off with her, but before he could get back into the underworld through one of his regular entrances Zeus threw a thunderbolt at him. Only he missed and split the mountain apart and made an opening and Dis escaped down there. That’s why it’s called Tartaros. . . .”
October 29, 2012
More and more Pavlova
. . . Well, puppyhood doesn’t last long. . . .
VOICE LESSONS START AGAIN NEXT MONDAY. YAAAAAAAAAY. Like I have time to drop voice lessons back into the maelstrom. While Pavlova is still little and somewhat, ahem, unpredictable* I’m going to take her along, and walk her either before or after;** there are some nice footpaths out there, and she’s still small enough to pick up if we meet any dogs of uncertain intentions.*** Which will also be when I find out that voice lessons make her howl. She doesn’t howl when I’m just dubbing around with the piano, but the emphasis there is on the ‘dubbing’. Nadia will have me begging for mercy pretty quickly I fear, possiby in shrill and squeaky tones. I had all these plans about the music I was going to learn while she was off having babies, to impress her with when she got back. Sigh. But I do have a PUPPY.
I had a fabulous new idea about socialising said puppy. Today I took her to a rose nursery.† Hey, there are PEOPLE at a rose nursery.†† There might even be other dogs. And in fact there were other dogs: a friendly Corgi and a shepherd/collie cross who shares Darkness’ attitude toward puppies, including the strong direct ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ glare at the human responsible. And tonight going bell ringing when I put her back in her crate as we were about to begin she had a strop, clearly saying, SO WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TEACH ME TO RING? I CAN STAND ON A BOX, CAN’T I? STOP TRIFLING WITH ME. I’M NOT JUST LITTLE AND CUTE.
* * *
* I can’t tell if any of this isn’t just that she’s a puppy and sphincter control is variable. She’s mostly getting through the nights clean and dry^ but she has yet to get through a day without peeing on her crate bedding at least once. Arrrgh. It may be partly that she still likes indoors so much better than outdoors—indoors has FOOOOOOOOD and TOYS and HELLHOUNDS!!!!—that she doesn’t finish the frelling job. There are downsides to everything. I’m delighted to have a FOOOOOOOOD-oriented dog because it means you can always catch her attention—and as we roll into winter I hope it means she’s not going to be hanging around outdoors to cavort in the arctic blast^^—but she is a trifle too distractible. When you’re outside waiting for her to relieve herself you can’t afford to pull out the little rustly bag of puppy kibble till after she’s finished what she’s doing OR SHE’LL STOP IN THE MIDDLE to dash up, plaster herself against your leg and look hopeful. THAT’S THE WRONG KIND OF SPHINCTER CONTROL, HONEYBUN.^^^
She also doesn’t like the dark much. This means that at night I can stand, with somewhat dubious complacency, at the top of the little curly walkway in Peter’s back garden, near the door, with both the sitting-room and Peter’s study lights blazing through the big windows, and if she disappears into the shadows, if I don’t follow her with my torch, she reappears promptly, looking somewhat reproachful, although she’s not good at reproachful (yet).# This is excellent over most of the lengthening winter evenings at the mews but last thing at night at the cottage, where the set-up is less congenial, not so much.
After trying to get a crap out of Pavlova, who will then probably last the night, but who thinks the cul de sac is full of bogeydogs and chiefly wants to go back indoors and EAT SOMETHING, and then striving to find tonight’s unique and exactingly proper ritual that will allow hellhounds to eat their supper (while Pavlova is yowling at the inadequacy of her final snack) I am a gibbering wreck. Sleep? What?##
^ YAAAAAAAAAY.+
+ I’m trying to decide which is the bigger YAAY, for singing lessons restarting or a clean puppy. Tough call.
^^ I should have had her down my coat-front on Saturday. A pocket heater than kicks. Hey, I missed a socialisation opportunity. She hasn’t been to a wedding yet.
^^^ Too much information warning: I clearly don’t have a clue about how often she needs to pee or we wouldn’t keep having damp bedding. But I do have a clue about how often she needs a crap and proceed accordingly. Today she had assumed the position and the desired result was emerging, and I said Good girl . . . AND SHE SUCKED IT BACK IN AND RUSHED UP TO ME FOR HER TREAT. AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. It took another couple of minutes—while I turned purple with all the things I was not saying—for her to settle down again and frelling do it.
# Chaos is the master of reproachful. May he remain the undisputed master of sad-but-accusing in this household.
## I’ve got most of the puppy-knitting yarn wound up again. It’s funny, this has been a less blood-pressure-raising job than the other night when the very end of a till-that-moment amenable hank ran amok.^ I went into this one knowing that it is a SNARL OF EPIC PROPORTIONS so it was like ho, hum, knots in seven dimensions? With teeth? And demonic giggling? Whatever.
^ One might almost say it hucklebutted.
** Although the ‘small enough to pick up’ is really not going to last much longer. I can still carry her one-armed only because (a) she thinks I can and (b) part of Olivia’s socialisation process includes practise dangling and Pavlova dangles extremely well. But when Niall and I stopped at the pub again^ coming back from ringing Pavlova’s fan club said, Ooooooh, she’s GROWN SO BIG. Yes. And I’m shovelling food into her. No, make that SHOVELLING.
^ It’s such good puppy socialisation. The cider is incidental.
*** Nadia seems to think it’s pretty quiet around Sorghumlea. It might be worth bringing hellhounds as well. It’s really very bad for dogs around New Arcadia and having my head down over this puppy-raising business is resulting in a lot of in-town, pavement walks for hellhounds, which get dispiriting after a while.
† Don’t ask. Several. But Peter did not have to sit on the roof coming home with Pavlova in his lap.
†† She eats thorns and thorny stems. Just by the way. Or she would. I’m labouring under what is no doubt the delusion that I’m getting them away from her in time. I, however, manage to stab myself and bleed. Ow.
October 28, 2012
Announcement. And puppy photos.
I am ringing my first wedding at the abbey. On my sixtieth birthday.
Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.
Hey, doesn’t this have to be a good omen?*
* * *
Meanwhile I’m falling down badly on puppy photos. I think I must have THOUSANDS of the things. I may have to buy a new hard drive to hold them all. I’ve ground my way through sorting and cropping over a hundred tonight, so you’ll forgive me if tonight’s text is a little sparse. But I didn’t want to keep you in suspense over puppy-learning-to-knit.** But first . . .
Puppy, all unknowing, on her way to her FIRST WALK. She is about to be SET DOWN ON THE GROUND. The GROUND! The very GROUND!!!!!
Determinedly on the way to . . . somewhere the hellgoddess will doubtless take exception to.
Oh . . . wow. Wow. Oh. . . .
I’m still amazed I managed to remember my camera to record First Walk. I didn’t record it very well, since you frequently need two hands for the puppy, but I feel honour was satisfied.
Meanwhile, yesterday the little freller snatched a ball of yarn out of my knapsack*** and . . . It’s amazing how fast a puppy making off with the swag can move, even a little short-legged tank like Pavlova. It must be all the hucklebutting.
Fortunately it’s only leg warmer yarn. If it were fancy hand-dyed super-fibre doodah whatsit . . . I might have a new puppy-shaped hearthrug.
Knowing your yardage is very important. I’m going to explain to her about gauge next.
But you can see she’s really . . . into it.
* * *
* What could go wrong? No, don’t answer that. I was a little drily amused today that for the afternoon service we rang nearly half an hour of call changes. Some of this is that while we had a good turn-out for a Sunday afternoon, two of the turn-out were Spaulding and me. While Spaulding is still grappling with trebling to his first methods I can’t ring anything but plain hunt on more than eight, and the rule of thumb for any service ringing is that you have as many of your bells going as possible for as much of the time as possible—although if you have forty ringers and thirty-eight of them can ring Spliced Parallelogram Kedgeree Bunkum it is perfectly acceptable to expect the two duds to sit out for a touch. But apparently the call changes for the wedding yesterday—which you may recall I got out of because I was stupid enough to agree to ring handbells for a late October wedding^—Did Not Go Well and it was decreed that we should practise call changes. Call changes in this area are mostly considered beneath the dignity of real ringers and are only resorted to when your band is encumbered by dweebs and losers. Like Spaulding and me.
I was, reprehensibly, a tiny bit pleased that the abbey band had come a trifle unglued without my assistance. Call changes on ninety-four is not beneath my dignity—merely ringing rounds on ninety-four is not beneath my dignity because of the whole awful business of hanging your wretched bell up and WAAAAAAAAAAAAITING till all the other ninety-three bells have rung and it’s your turn again. This varies with the bell, but it can be VERY DIFFICULT to get your thundering great bonger to stand still—and then to yank it back into action quickly and accurately enough. The bell I happened to be on for the call changes was almost impossible for a jerky over-ringer like myself to hold on the balance and then pull in behind the bell in front of me fast enough. I could either hold it up there or I could try to get closer to the bell in front—and trying to get closer tended to involve having the beastly thing come down too soon and go CRASH on the previous bell. ARRRRRRRRRRRGH. I’VE BEEN RINGING EIGHT YEARS AND I CAN’T RING ROUNDS. And then . . . imagine ninety-four people standing around the edges of a ballroom. The conductor shouts, FOUR TO SEVENTY-TWO! Which means bell four is to stop following whoever it’s been following and follow the seventy-two. You have one third of a second to make your bell BONG in the right place, okay? How fast can you count to seventy-two to see who you’re supposed to be following?^^
^ Handbellers have to ring outside. In a contest between handbells and even the tiniest, plinkiest organ, the organ wins.
^^ I’m misleading you for what I fondly imagine is simplicity’s sake but maybe it isn’t. Bells can only move one space at a time. If you’re in rounds and you’re ringing the four, you can only be called to ring after the five or the two (because you’re following the three). But a good conductor JUMBLES YOU ALL THE FRELL UP so after a few minutes and some brisk calling you could be anywhere in the row.
** ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH.
*** You CAN’T put everything out of puppy reach. You run out of SURFACES. I don’t have any counter space left at the cottage.
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