Robin McKinley's Blog, page 81

It’s an arrrrrrgh day.*

 

Okay, I don’t rant about readers very often.  No matter how many times I start off by saying THE VAST—THE VAST, VASTVASTVAST—MAJORITY, that’s MAJORITY, did you get it that I said MAJORITY? OF PEOPLE WHO WRITE TO ME ABOUT MY BOOKS ARE COMPLIMENTARY AND I AM GLAD TO HEAR FROM THEM,** on the comparatively rare occasions when I do allow my inner vicious cow to express herself I can pretty well guarantee I will, shortly thereafter, receive one or more emails from outraged members of the public*** telling me that I am toxic pond slime, and conceited, and arrogant, and that I don’t deserve to have ANY readers, and that they will tell all their friends not to read me, and occasionally, on a roll, they start telling me that I have no idea what their life is like† and it’s all downhill from there††. 

            I do not enjoy reading these emails††† and I have to read enough of each of them to know to delete it, you know?  But sometimes my inner vicious cow just cannot be silenced.  Yesterday I received an email from a teenager doing an Important Project.  She is an Aspiring Writer and she has decided that, for her Important Project, she is going to collect a lot of writing advice from fabulous published writers, create a book-shaped object out of this, and dispense copies to all the libraries in her area.‡

            She addresses me, one of her chosen fabulous published writers, thus:  For years I was reluctant to read your novel, The Dragon and The Sword, solely because my mom recommended.‡‡

            Ahem.

            So, which one do we think she is referring to?  Or has she conflated SWORD and HERO and is fondly remembering a story where a tall/middling blond/redhead from the Homeland/North rides a chestnut/grey to glory involving dragons/monsters/distant relatives‡‡‡? 

            If you’re going to write to somebody, like maybe an author, like maybe a stranger you’re asking a favour, for pity’s sake DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST.

            A few hours after this unlovely email arrived, another one pinged into my inbox from the same person.  Oh, I thought, she’s noticed, and she’s writing an embarrassed apology.§  Not at all.  She was sending me an extra question that was left out of the earlier version of her questionnaire,§§  to wit, would I be willing to teach a class in a writing seminar day at her school? 

             Do I get to hope she means via Skype?§§§           

* * *

* It did not end well when three of the four of us rushed to the exit after the first act, cheeping with boredom, frustration, and the kind of embarrassment you feel at a good professional troupe wasting their time on tosh, tonight at the theatre. 

            We all came home during intermission, the fourth of our party having said, oh, well, I didn’t think it was that bad.  I had fed hellhounds—and they, for a wonder, had eaten—really early, before we left.  I now have a hellhound who is convinced he never had supper.  I guess it makes a change from . . . Food?  You mean . . . food?  We’re supposed to . . . eat this stuff?^  

^ Southdowner says that I have to feed Pavlova first.  That bullies do like their food, but that the megrims of hellhounds might conceivably put even a bull terrier off.  

** Although . . . siiiiiiiiiiigh . . . wouldn’t you think someone writing to an author would be REALLY REALLY REALLY CAREFUL with stuff like grammar and spelling?  Okay, looking up grammar^ can sometimes be a ratbag, but spelling?  It takes a fraction of  a fraction of a second to look something up from pretty much ANY computer programme that produces words any more, and if I see ‘definately’ once more I may run mad with an axe.  —Which the faithful Microsoft Word just automatically corrected for me (and is now objecting with a red line to my de-correction) so apparently there are a lot of people out there not using Microsoft Word or who have turned the auto-spell thing off.  Turn it back on.  Please.   

^ Between you and me.  Not I.  ME.  Between you and me.  Between is a PREPOSITION.  Your pronoun needs to be in the OBJECTIVE.  Please generalise this to with her and me, from him and me, etc.  

*** They’re not even necessarily readers of my books.  This is the thing that really boggles me.  It’s tedious and discouraging enough to get yelled at for being a Loathsome Human Being by someone who claims they used to like my books.  It’s really disconcerting to get yelled at by someone who says ‘and now I’m never ever going to read ANY of your books.’  Huh?  Are there specifiable search protocols out there for finding stuff that will piss you off when you need to yell at someone?^ 

^ Where do I . . . no, no, my computer(s) supply as much yelling-at opportunity as I need. 

† Okay, that’s true 

†† Rolling, you know. 

††† At least they’re rarely street mail any more.  I swear hate mail off-gases nuclear meltdown or car exhaust or something.  

‡ Just by the way, if there’s a book-shaped object to be made out of professional writers’ words, there’s usually, you know, contracts, and, conceivably, money, involved in the transaction.  I haven’t got a problem with donating to a charity^ but I think I might feel a little twitchy about this project if other details weren’t ploughing it under.  It could be a perfectly genuine error of concept on her part, but aren’t teenagers doing Important Projects usually assigned adult mentors with a clue? 

^ Aside from the fact that I’ve never produced a piece of writing to order that a charity would want.  See:  Peter’s EARTH AND AIR, since I can’t write short stories. 

‡‡ Sic, by the way.  There is no ‘it’.  This is probably an acceptable typo—it’s always hard to proofread your own stuff, and we’re going on the assumption that she doesn’t have an adult mentor with a clue who might proofread with her—still. 

‡‡‡ Okay, there is some cause for confusion.  There is a war, a blue sword, and marrying the king in both of them.^ 

^ Unless she’s talking about DRAGONHAVEN.  In which case it gets really interesting.  

§ Not that this will actually do her any good.  I haven’t got time to—or the least interest in—writing a lot more drivel about The Writing Process.  That’s what my website FAQ is for.  I haven’t updated it in years—bad me—but the writing stuff doesn’t need updating. 

§§ Which she sent as an attachment.  Does anyone open attachments from strangers any more?  Not me babe.  And this is something I would have thought Today’s Teenager, on Facebook from birth, who may have forgotten how to sign her name on a piece of paper with a pen^ but who can text faster than Super(wo)man can leap a tall building in a single bound, wouldn’t have needed an adult mentor to tell her not to do. 

^ Pen?  You mean like that thing I need to buy before my BULL TERRIER PUPPY comes home in about ten days? 

§§§  She’s a year off graduating.  She’s old enough to have some idea of money and that, you know, travelling costs an amount of it.  Never mind professional fees.  And she’s writing from America and it’s a one-clicker to find out I live in England.

KES, 45

 

FORTY FIVE 

I stood up slowly.  She watched me but didn’t move.  I walked round the end of the bed toward the back of the room, where the fruits of my visit to the mall sat in their plastic bags.  I groped till I found a can of tuna and a loaf of bread.  I retrieved the plastic basket, poured the last few drops of water out, tore up some bread, dumped the tuna over (fortunately it had a pull-tab like a beer can), and set it beside Sid.  She’d raised her head and was watching me.  There was definitely some lip-licking action. 

            She stood up and snorfed the lot in about a second and a half.  “Oh,” I said.  I had a second tin of tuna and three quarters of a loaf of bread left, so I did it again.  This also disappeared.  “Oh dear,” I said.  “Are you going to turn out to be the canine version of a sixteen-year-old boy?”

            She licked the bottom of the plastic basket lovingly, and lay down again.  When she sighed this time it sounded like a happy, contented sigh.  I used soap on the basket and put more water down for her.  She was lying on her side and her eyes were closed.  They blinked open when I set the water down, and the tail came up and down in a totally committed wag.  

            “Okay,” I said.  “I want to take a bath, and it’s too cold to leave the door open.  You’re staying, right?” 

              The tail thumped again, and the eyes shut.

               I closed the door.

                Don’t do this at home.  I could have fed her outdoors, if I was deranged enough to feed an unknown, just-met stray dog at all.  I didn’t even know if she was housebroken, let alone if she had psychotic breaks when she went around destroying furniture and ripping people’s throats out.  Plus fleas and ringworm.

                I had my bath.  Maybe the sound of gentle canine snores had its effect, because I fell asleep in the bath.  When I woke up because the water was getting cold she was still stretched out on the carpet between the door and the bed.  There was kind of a lot of her.  It wasn’t very wide but the legs went on and on.  I dried my wizened, water-pruney self off and put on a clean t shirt and pants from the plastic bag my rose-bush had thoughtfully brought to my attention.  Had it only been last night?  Yeep.  Then reluctantly I put my clothes back on, and opened the door.  Ugh.  It was still winter in New Iceland.

                Sid was awake and looking at me over her shoulder.  “Come on,” I said.  “You have to go out first if you’re going to spend the night in here.  I’m not entirely mad, only about ninety percent.”  She wagged her tail but didn’t move.  I walked back to her and knelt down beside her.  She liked this.  She wagged her tail again and tried to roll over on her back, which, with her long narrow body and peaked spine, was not easy.  She managed.  Assuming I was being invited, I rubbed her tummy.  Definitely a girl.   A very, very skinny girl.

                  When she flopped over on her side again I said.  “Okay.  You still have to go out.  I promise to let you back in again.  Ninety percent.  Mad.”  While she was thinking about it I rummaged among my shopping till I found a roll of small plastic bags.  I opened the box and stuffed a few in my pocket.

                  “Come on,” I said.  “Dragging you is not in the plan.”

                  She heaved herself to her feet and trotted outdoors.  I had a brief awful sinking of the heart when she lined out across the lot—she’d had her way with me, which was to say dinner, and was now moving on.  No.  She just liked the look of that particular tree.  I followed her and picked up what she left.  When I had bought that roll of small plastic bags the imminent arrival of Silent Wonder Dog and the inevitable responsibilities involved with same had been the last thing on my mind.  Pet store.  And vet. 

                   She finished her business and trotted immediately back to cabin seven.  I was pleased that no curtains twitched at any of the other cabins’ lighted windows. 

                   Sid trotted straight up the steps of cabin seven and waited expectantly at the door.   I left a small plastic bag with a knot holding it closed between Merry and the porch.  I opened the cabin door and Sid went straight in.  She collapsed.  I closed and locked the door.  I looked at the dog on the floor and shook my head. 

                   I got out of my clothes and into bed.  I set the alarm.  Gods help me I was moving tomorrow.  I was moving into my new house.  Tomorrow.  It was still relatively early.  I had been going to check my email tonight.  I wavered.  No.  I was moving tomorrow.  And I now had pet store and vet on the urgent list too.  And I was exhausted.  Email could wait.  I turned the light off.  I lay down.

                    There was a faint whispery noise, and then a gentle new weight on the bed.  It paused, either for a reaction or while it viewed the territory, and then delicately stepped over me to settle down on the other side of the queen-sized bed I was tactfully taking up less than half of.  It sighed.

                   Fleas.  Ringworm.  Psychotic breaks.

                   I fell asleep.

The Most Beautiful Puppy, continued 2

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3qfMNBNdQ 

 

b_twin_1

Chocolate Pavlova. 

This had actually crossed my mind.  Surprisingly.  Bag the berries, I figure, the pavlova I have in mind is layers of chocolate and vanilla meringue stuck together with whipped cream and melted chocolate drizzled lavishly over the top.  Non standard?  A pavlova must have berries?  Bite me, one might say. 

And Pavlova the bull terrier puppy is the right colour for my pavlova. 

Melissa Mead

Chaos, Darkness, and Mayhem? (May for short.) 

SNORK.  I like ‘May’.  It sounds so . . . innocent. 

b_twin_1

Are you really sure that naming a dog “Mayhem” is a good idea???? Seems like it would be asking for trouble…! 

For the moment she will remain Pavlova on the blog.  If she earns Mayhem . . . 

Catlady

Havoc is always a good choice. 

. . . or Havoc in a year or so we may have a Renaming Ceremony.  But Darkness and Chaos are the names I use that they don’t know—their call names, the names they know mean COME HERE NOW OR YOU ARE IN DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE, are perfectly honest polite plausible names suitable for screaming across half Hampshire, and they were a good year old before all the other things I called them to relieve my feelings settled down to Darkness and Chaos.  But they EARNED Darkness and Chaos.

Shalea

*thunk* ::dies of cute:: 

Yes.  It’s now two days ago so when Southdowner just now sent me the photos she took on Sunday I’m all DIES.  OF.  CUTE. 

blondviolinist

She is so precious!!! 

Yep.

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/The-bidding-will-start-at-eleven-million-dollars-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8534531_.htm 

(If you don’t know Barsotti, he is seriously worth a cruise.  He totally gets it about dogs.) 

http://www.condenaststore.com/-st/Charles-Barsotti-Cartoons-Prints_c146238_.htm 

Diane in MN

Are you really sure that naming a dog “Mayhem” is a good idea???? Seems like it would be asking for trouble…!

NAMING CALLS. When it comes to dogs, this isn’t superstition, it’s for real. 

Absolutely.  I’d say for critters generally—or for anything you call, including spirits from the vasty deep and so on.  I’m pushing it labelling my guys the hellhounds since ‘mostly whippet with a little deerhound’ doesn’t really roll off the tongue.  But they are the hellhounds to me.  And my personality was wrecked long before I came out as the hellgoddess. 

Congratulations on your beautiful puppy girl! I agree with kateinseattle that she has a measuring eye, but that’s okay. Means there’s a brain in there.

 It’s also a soft eye.  Lavvy has soft eyes—just before she kangaroo-leaps and head-butts you and you thud back into the wall with a small anguished cry.  She’s still a bull terrier.  Pavlova is still going to grow up to be a bull terrier.

Southdowner gets quite cranky about people declaring that bull terriers are stupid.  She says they’re as trainable as any dog, you just have to mean it more.  She still thinks I’m unprepared for the reality of a bull terrier, and I daresay I am . . . but I also think she underestimates hellhounds.

There have been moments these last few weeks when I’ve thought Olivia and Southdowner were trying to talk me out of getting my first bull terrier.

For anyone who doesn’t know, this is a characteristic of good breeders, especially with people who are new to their breed. 

I think I knew that, but had forgotten, not having faced a new breed in a while.  And Southdowner is my friend.  When someone you believe has your best interests at heart appears to be trying very hard to talk you out of something, you start to worry.

But she still doesn’t have the name she’s going to have to learn to answer to. But now that I know who I’m naming . . .

Just a suggestion–don’t make it anything that rhymes with “no”. I speak from experience . . . 

SNORK.  Well, since I didn’t get Fruitcake, ‘Cyrano’ is no longer at issue.  If I ever did have a male bull terrier. . . . Well, I could call him ‘Sir’ for short.  That should be safe.  

CathyR

Olivia also knew that I had an early crush on Fruitcake but I was not going to be allowed to have a boy for my first bull terrier.

First …. ??!! 

SNORK.  I acknowledge your point, but if you are faced with two intent, anxious women determined to save you from yourself as gently as possible, they do say things like ‘first’ to comfort you about the limitations of now. 

Julia

PUPPY. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

That covers it nicely. 

SarahAllegra

She is beautiful! I love her markings; her blaze is so charming and the little tan spots on her eyebrows will, I believe, make her seem even more expressive and emotive. 

She is the BEST.  She is the BEST.  I just had an email from Olivia saying that they are all four stunners, and I wrote back politely agreeing but . . . mine is the best.

When is she coming to live with you for good?? 

Weekend after next.  EEEEEEEEEEEP.  I both want her NOW, right NOW, I’m wasting TIME*, and I also . . . kind of wish I were still on the list for next year’s puppies.**

There is a further tactical problem.  The only way to get a second crate into my kitchen at the cottage is to take the table out.  I was saying this to someone by email last night—I’d stopped at the big pet-warehouse place yesterday to view my options, on my way in to the abbey—oh well, I don’t entertain much, and I usually eat breakfast sitting on a stool next to the Aga which is keeping my teapot warm.  But even if I do take the table out . . . WHERE DO I PUT IT EVEN TEMPORARILY?  We may have to have handbell evenings at Third House till she’s old enough for a sleeping-only sized crate, which I think will fit in the kitchen, although one of the chairs will have to go somewhere else permanently.  But while she still needs somewhere to pee overnight I HAVE A PROBLEM.*** 

I also have faith that the hellhounds will accept her into the pack sooner rather than later. My experience with sighthounds has shown them to be unfailingly kind and sweet to babies of any species.

I’m sure they’ll all three be fine eventually.  I admit I’m faintly anxious about how long eventually may take.  And yes, hellhounds adore puppies met out on the landscape.  This business about having one follow them home is not quite so immediately recognised as a Good Thing. 

Lianne

Congratulations on a truly gorgeous puppy (especially now that her ears are up… eaaaaarrrrrsssss…). I thought she was the prettiest from the very first pictures you posted, actually. 

Ah yes, the ears.  The thing that is worrying me about Pavlova’s ears is that bullie ears come up the whole way—like an Alsatian’s.  The tips don’t flop over like a hellhound’s, and as Pavlova’s are still doing at present.  But the smaller the eventual dog the sooner the ears stand up straight . . . and Fruitcake and Croissant’s ears are standing up straight now. 

            Well, she is the prettiest. . . .   

Stardancer

I can now say that I was hoping it would be Pavlova. 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  I actually thought Pavlova was the prettiest of the girls too—but she was also the original Big Girl, the biggest puppy at birth† and the puppy that had to be on the top of every heap going.  It wasn’t relevant at first because I wasn’t on the list for this litter, but I went ahead and had a crush on Fruitcake because he was the runt,†† and because even as a fantasy I didn’t want a thug.  Pavlova didn’t start manifesting her milder side till comparatively recently, I think—and Scone is now way out front as the puppy who will grow up to be the Bullie That Wins Crufts/Ate Schenectady—meanwhile Pavlova seems to have morphed into the tolerant, laid back one.  Ready to roll with a clueless human. 

 

Scone. These are NOT soft eyes.

Mockorange

Yay!! Congratulations!! She’s absolutely adorable. Hope Chaos and Darkness regain their composure soon. I am looking forward to lots and lots of puppy pics.

I’m sure that can be arranged.  

 

The Most Beautiful Puppy. Also most adorable. Etc.

I was going to hang more tonight but I am trashed.†††

That’s a good leap on Darkness’s part, to get over a waist-high door. 

Well, he thought I needed rescuing.  He may have a point. . . . 

* * *

* I’m finishing frelling SHADOWS.  And frelling doodling.  

** But not really.  MINE.  MINE. 

MINE.

*** There is a further Interesting Development which is that everybody involved in this transaction is presently in a vehicularly challenged state.  I can never drive far because of the frelling ME.  Olivia’s dog-transport car had some bits fall off recently and apparently the particular brand of green garden twine she has used on previous occasions has discontinued production.  Poor Southdowner broke down on the way home Sunday night and had an EPIC adventure of nearly six hours of waiting around by the side of the road while (a) the RAC decided they couldn’t fix the van and (b) the taxi to take her and the puppies home was delayed on its way back from Warsaw. 

            I really do not want to bring Pavlova home in a carrier on the train.  Really.  Do not.  Want. ^ 

^ She’d probably think it was a thrilling adventure.  Bullies are like that.+  I would be a nervous wreck. 

+ I keep thinking of Nemo trotting cheerfully through the crowds at the Birmingham train station.  

† See:  ears 

†† Relatively.  And it didn’t last.  

††† Stress levels are a TRIFLE HIGH.

Yet Another Announcement*

 

Even I admit this pales in comparison to getting SHADOWS sent in and the decision on who is to be my bull terrier puppy** but it’s still big news to me:   

I’M AN OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE FORZA ABBEY TOWER RINGERS.  YESSSSSSSSSS. 

Last Wednesday week** at practise, and entirely out of nowhere, I had two different people say to me, perhaps not quite in these words, you’re here all the time, why don’t you frelling JOIN?  The first one, Landon, hadn’t realised I’d quit New Arcadia—well I’m not ringing at the abbey Sunday mornings so I might very well be ringing at New Arcadia, except that I’m not.  And I said, I’d love to join, but I’m not really abbey material, and he said on the contrary, you keep showing up, we need ringers, and as you know perfectly well you’re not the only sub-Doohickey Dingdong Frabjous Super-Maximus ringer in the band.  Um, I said.† 

            But only a few minutes later Pardulfo got up on the big tenor box†† to exhort us to vote in the abbey council elections, because bell ringers are under-represented in abbey council deliberations.  All you regular visitors! he said.  You should join.  And then he looked straight at me, and said, You!  You should join!

            Eeep, I said.  Certainly.  Happy to.  Er—how?

            I’ll email you the paperwork, he said.

            And then he didn’t.

            A week went by.  I sighed a lot.  Last Wednesday practise I sidled up to Pardulfo and said, um, you were going to send me the paperwork about joining the band—?

            He looked stricken, and rushed off to consult the tower captain who—I thought, watching, while standing in the middle of that FRELLING GIGANTIC BALLROOM FLOOR and feeling about two inches tall—looked at me and the expression that crossed his face might politely be described as nonplussed. 

            Oh well, I thought.

            He did send me the paperwork the next morning.  But it was all about getting put on the abbey rolls††† and voting in the elections and nothing about being accepted as a tower ringer.  Oh well, I thought again, and, elections being imminent, printed everything out, filled in the forms and posted them that afternoon.  Brooded for a bit, and then emailed my putative future tower captain back, saying that I’d done as instructed, but my real goal was to join the tower, and there must be some further document involved.

            He didn’t answer.

            OH WELL.

            . . . And then over the weekend I discovered the self-addressed stamped envelope you’re supposed to include to receive the postal voting form still on my desk at the cottage.  ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH.  Since I’m trying to hard to be a good doobie here, which does NOT come easily, I decided I’d go in today‡ and vote in person.‡‡  Shining with prospective virtue, I turned my computer on this morning . . . and there was an email from the abbey tower captain, welcoming me as a member of the band, and wishing me many happy years ringing with them. 

             So I also went to evensong after voting and stuffed a little money in the ‘retiring collection’‡‡‡ as a thank you. §

             I HAVE A HOME TOWER AGAIN. §§ 

* * *

* These things go in threes, right? 

** http://www.puppytext.com/view25364MAZRGW  With thanks to Peter for finding puppytext.com in a silly-item-round-up in the GUARDIAN of all places. 

*** So two Wednesdays ago 

† They rang Cambridge surprise major on Sunday, and I went to stand by the treble and watch.  The treble does something called treble bobbing for—well, all the surprise methods I know about, it wouldn’t, ahem, surprise me if there were exceptions—and while I can treble to surprise minor (six bells) trebling to major (eight bells) requires that you count higher and dodge more times and seven, as you’re counting your place in the row rhythmically to yourself, has two syllables.  One-two-three-four-five-six-SVN-eight.  I’ve never trebled to surprise major but anywhere but the frelling abbey I might, at this point, have a reasonable shot at it.^  But ring Cambridge major inside, when I can barely limp through a plain course of minor on a very good day?  Forget it.

            Wild Robert, on the three, said, Never mind the treble.  Come stand by me.  

^ Maybe I’ll ask to try it some time at Fustian, if all continues to go well there.    

†† Big tenor bells tend to have big tenor boxes for the ringer to stand on.  He, or she, is less likely to get tangled up in the 1,000,000,000 miles of rope to go around a big tenor wheel, when the ringer is above floor level.  The abbey’s tenor is humungous, so the box is correspondingly humungous.  

†††  I noticed they want all your details which no doubt means I’m going to be harangued for donations for the rest of my life.  But it takes oceans of money to keep something the size of the abbey not merely open for business, but the walls vertical and the roof nailed on—and yes I think it should be kept alive and running so, fine, whatever. 

‡ And possibly stop at the knitting store for a pair of 7 mm needles.  I used to reject automatically all patterns calling for any needle smaller than 4 mm because I’m still too twitchy a knitter to deal with anything that finger-tanglingly teeny.  But since I have yet to get gauge on anything smaller than one or two or even three needle sizes larger than suggested my attitude has changed.  It is of course possible that now that I’ve FINALLY GOT SHADOWS TURNED IN^ my knitting will LOOSEN UP A LITTLE.^^  

^ Even if I’m still working on it   

^^ Although not, please fate, in the middle of anything I’m knitting right now.  

‡‡ And it’s a good thing I did, since they had no record of me or any of those painstakingly filled-in forms.  By which we learn that however lofty the abbey spiritual attainments, bureaucracy rules there too in its usual bumbling fashion, down here at grub level. 

‡‡‡ Ah, the British.  In America, you go to church, some body passes a plate while you’re still trapped in a pew, and glares at you.  All right, I have attended C of E services where they pass a plate—or, more often, a little bag, the better to disguise how much or how little you’re putting in it—but in this case there was a discreet tray at a little distance from the exit from the little enclosed bit where the service was held into the vaster territory of the abbey generally and it would have been easy to miss it.  

§ The bell tower, after all, is part of the fabric of this vast churchy building that needs to be kept upright and working, and our membership dues are pathetic and, furthermore, some organising body—and I am embarrassingly uncertain whether it’s the C of E admin or the central bell council admin—will pay it for you if you don’t jump in the breach and wave money.  

§§ I have really hated being ‘unattached’ as it’s called.  Makes me feel utterly lost and alone in a hostile universe^.  Bellringing is a team activity.  You need to belong somewhere, even if you ring elsewhere too. 

^ Just like the SWD, although I don’t tell sad stories of the death of kings with my tail much.+ 

+ Note that Kes does not share my allergy to Shakespeare.

 

The Most Beautiful Puppy in the Universe

 

And the most desirable.  I will have to beat people away with sticks when I take her into town* because everyone will want her.  And she’s MINE.  MINE.

 

Pavlova. Mine.

It’s been pretty funny watching Olivia worrying about which puppy I should have.  I’ve told you these are all mega-show-quality puppies so first choice goes to mega-show-quality bull terrier people**, and I’m standing humbly in a corner, hat in hand***, waiting for whoever is deemed to be the dregs.  Simultaneously Olivia wants me to have the quiet one, supposing there is a quiet one in a litter of bull terriers, although since you probably want the sparkly outgoing one(s) to catch the judge’s eye at Crufts there is some hope that if there’s anything resembling placid I might get it. 

            But the other thing has been that Olivia has been terrified that I might not bond with a puppy I was simply presented with rather than allowed to choose, although she and Southdowner never were going to let me choose because I am a poor sad clueless vulnerable bull terrier neophyte and I couldn’t be trusted not to choose the puppy that was clearly going to grow up to be The Thing That Ate Schenectady.  Olivia also knew that I had an early crush on Fruitcake but I was not going to be allowed to have a boy for my first bull terrier.  So of course I was already going to be sulking about whichever little unwanted girl was vouchsafed me.  —Are you kidding?  I have been trying to tell both Olivia and Southdowner that I will instantly recognise my reject as actually the best puppy in the litter whom all the experts (including Olivia and Southdowner) were too stupid to recognise, that I will bond with her INSTANTLY and that in a year or two† I won’t be able to imagine that I could have ended up with anyone else.††

            So Olivia told me a few days ago, trying to sound confident and decisive, that my puppy was going to be Pavlova.  Great, I said, and I could frelling feel all my brain cells immediately realigning to crown Pavlova Queen of All.  And furthermore, Olivia went on, Southdowner is going to be making a swing through in this general direction today†††, dropping off Croissant for a few hours with her future person, and she could come through here and leave Pavlova with me ditto.

            This is, I have to say, a transparent ruse to get Southdowner involved with introducing Pavlova to the hellhounds and vice versa.  Pavlova was fine with the hellhounds.  Hellhounds, I admit, were totally traumatised by three puppies, even if they were only expected to meet one of them, but in my vague, I-find-the-weirdest-things-not-to-worry-about-or-maybe-it’s-just-I’m-still-not-quite-done-with-SHADOWS way, I was not expecting major eruptions and they weren’t . . . major.  But there was a good deal of drama-queendom in the kitchen at Third House while the puppies gambolled and said, oh, neato, new territory! and the hellhounds said, Nooooooooooo, make it go awaaaaaaaay.‡  I had no idea Chaos could make a noise like that. 

            But we moved down to the mews after the initial shocking confrontation‡‡ and some lowering of the anguish level was discernable.  Darkness went so far as to get up on the sofa between two people holding puppies, lie down, and at least pretend to go to sleep.  It was noticeable that he had his butt to me and his head tucked behind Southdowner’s back . . . but he was on the sofa.  Chaos continued to moan in corners like an unquiet ghost. 

            Southdowner and puppies left again tonight and you never saw two more crashed-out hellhounds.  I feel a little unhinged myself.  But . . . MINE.  MINE.  

The fatuousness. And the adoreableness.

 * * *

* Which I will be doing a lot because you want to socialise your puppy anyway but Olivia and Southdowner have truly put the fear of God in me and I’m convinced that if you let your guard down for an instant the nicest, sweetest, most amenable bull terrier morphs into Bruce Banner in a bad mood and THEN. . . . 

            So we’ll be going to Mauncester a lot, possibly Zigguraton and . . . possibly bell ringing.  Well, there are bell ringing dogs.  Glaciation is not only out in the middle of nowhere^ it’s a ground floor ring.  Since I’ll have to lock her up in her carrier while I’m ringing I don’t want any more kit to schlep any farther than I have to, and I can give her a bit of a walk around before/after without worrying about what we might meet.^^ 

^ It’s one of these Strange English Land Usage Traditions.  It’s a public church, but it’s in the middle of a vast piece of private park land owned by some grandee.  You drive forever from the front gate, winding around over little rivers and watching the deer bound away in the distance.  Gaaah.  

^^ I’m sure she’d be thrilled by deer.  However my hand-brake reflexes are very well honed by six years with hellhounds.+ 

+ And sixteen of whippets before that, but whippets don’t weigh nearly as much.  Hellhounds, like whippets, can reach pretty close to top speed in the 26 feet or so of extending lead—but with hellhounds if you fail to hit the brake in time they will knock you over when they hit the end . . . and long term readers of this blog don’t have to ask how I know this.  Bull terriers don’t have the blistering speed but . . . they’re bull terriers.  They go through things.  Brick walls, armoured tanks, the ends of extending leads SPROINNNNGGGGGG, semi-attached human optional.# 

# There have been moments these last few weeks when I’ve thought Olivia and Southdowner were trying to talk me out of getting my first bull terrier.

** Carefully vetted for giving them lives as dogs.  Southdowner has been known to turn down serious money from people who want a furry winning machine.  

*** So to speak.  Not being a hat wearer much. 

† Assuming survival of puppyhood.  I’m not worried about her surviving, I’m worried about the hellhounds and me. 

†† And when Olivia or Southdowner shows me photos of a littermate winning Best in Show at the Intergalactic Dog Trials I will try to appear happy and enthusiastic and not make it too obvious that I know a better dog.  

††† She’s got family down here somewhere.  She stops in New Arcadia when she can. 

‡ And as Southdowner pointed out after I said ‘hey guys’ to the puppies and Darkness leaped over the waist-high half-door blocking the way into the Third House kitchen because I was calling him, I will need a non-hellhound-reactive call for Pavlova.   I was embarrassed at the time—first rule (as Maggie says early in SHADOWS):  if your dog does something wrong it’s your fault—but in fact once she’s a member of the home pack, she’ll become ‘hey guys’ inclusive.  But she will need her own call name.  Life at present is a trifle complex because she has the name that Olivia uses, Pavlova that I use here^, and her ridiculous registry name. . . . But she still doesn’t have the name she’s going to have to learn to answer to.  But now that I know who I’m naming . . . 

^ ‘Chaos, Darkness and . . . Pavlova’?  Hmmmm. 

‡‡ And I went bell ringing.  Wild Robert was there, and I asked if Nadia’s baby was learning to play the piano yet (no) and told him I was getting a puppy and he said, oh, that’s nice, that’s like having a baby except all your shoes get eaten too.

Shortening Maggie and lengthening Kes

 

I’ve spent the day trying to rip superfluous paragraphs out of SHADOWS and being glad to have the opportunity to think/feel that Maggie’s voice sounds pretty much the way I hear her when I’m trying to write her story.  She’s a very articulate senior in high school but in her sixty-year-old chronicler’s defense, she reads an awful lot and (as the sixty-year-old chronicler knows) this does tend to show. 

            I haven’t written two stories at the same time before—at least not as intensively as I’ve been doing with SHADOWS and KES the last five months.  And there are some disconcerting parallels.  They’re both told in first person.  They’re both alt-modern-America.  Each heroine has a crucial dog.  There’s a gigantic truck-like vehicle also crucial to the story in both.  I don’t (fortunately) feel this is the Story Council getting bored with my limitations.  As I’ve said in one form or another many times, the story is the story, but to get itself down on paper* it can only use the tools it has available.  Writer as toolbox.  I know enough critters that I might be able to wing it about a critter I don’t know** but a story trying to find the means in McKinley to bolt together a serial murderer with a Portmeirion pottery fetish, an alcoholic ex-policeman who collects Altair 8800s and a runaway schizophrenic heiress with a suitcase full of gelignite would have a nervous breakdown.***   I could also comment that both Maggie and Kes think they’re totally boring and ordinary but that’s just part of the checklist for a McKinley heroine and not really worth picking out.  Like that Maggie could grow up to be a lot like Kes.  Kes might even grow old to be a lot like me.   Except that she’ll have had the leaping-tall-buildings-at-a-single-bound experience at some point.  Sigh.

Katinseattle

A mechanical gremlin that plays with a bowl of nuts and bolts and odd bits. I love Serena’s workshop more and more. 

Catherine

Can I just move into this story and have done with it? 

Katsheare

Cath, you’d have to move back to the States to live in Kes’ world. With real winters. 

SarahAllegra

I would venture to guess that I am not the only one who wishes she were living Kes’ life, stress and all right now. Or at least that New Iceland was a place I could go live in? And eat at that magical everything-is-amazing diner? And move into Rose Manor? I’m sure things would look different to Kes from her point of view, but living her life right now sounds just about perfect. 

Yes.   Queue forms to the left.†  It does amuse me that so many of you are wallowing, er, appreciating the Kes-as-wish-fulfillment aspect too.  As far as I’m concerned it’s all about me.††  And even though I’m plugging in what-would-McKinley-do at any crossroad when the answer isn’t obvious, The Story Is Still the Story and mostly it has its own ideas, and the real winters are one of the things that comfort me about this life experienced, as it is, in southern England.  Even if all my frelling hobbies seem to be things I’m frelling pathetic at.††  Not being quite ordinary and boring is all very well but I hope Kes doesn’t turn out to be too good at too many things. 

jmeadows

How funny that Serena suggested Kes work in the bookstore.

I’ll be surprised if Kes doesn’t get entangled in the haunted bookstore somehow.  NO I DON’T KNOW EITHER.  But we’ll all find out.  Eventually. 

b_twin_1

I absolutely want Flowerhair to come visit Rose Manor. Cantering up the driveway, possibly a slash or two at the vagrant undergrowth, and then looking up at the house and musing if there is a spare bedroom.

(There’s another spare room for Aldetruda too, isn’t there??) 

Totally.  And there’s at least one more loose MacFarquhar heroine.  We may have to get a bit creative about accommodations for the horse(s). 

            I don’t know that Kes is going to meet Flowerhair, exactly, but the borderlines between Kes’ reality and Kes’ fiction have already started to blur seriously.  You just haven’t read those eps yet.  Mwa hahahahahaha.  

EMoon

I think maybe, without even having read them, I would be more a fan of Flowerhair than Aldetruda, but I could be wrong. But am a serious, thoroughly addicted fan of Kes and Serena and Gus and Rose Manor and the whole thing. WANT MORE. 

Oh good. 

            I think Aldetruda at the moment suffers mostly from insufficient exposure.  Although Flowerhair is high and Aldetruda is urban, so it does somewhat derive from your preferences in fantasy.  But KES is urban . . . and before SUNSHINE I had never much liked urban myself.‡ 

Have become a tiny bit confused . . . about why Kes would need to be taken back to the motel, instead of home to Rose Manor…did the truck break down? Did I miss something? 

She hasn’t moved yet.  Your perception of the passage of time when you’re only getting KES in 800-word snippets, and her writer-down has a serious problem with wandering off the topic, is warped.  This is only her second night in New Iceland.  It’s still only today that she saw Rose Manor for the first time.  She’s moving tomorrow.  

blondviolinist

katinseattle wrote:  Now I need to learn to read slower. **sigh**

Or you can just start at the beginning and read them all again. I found I’d missed lots of small clues along the way. 

Yes, well, be careful about thinking those are clues.  I mostly don’t have the faintest, a story can be the most awful tease—and I’m only about ten eps ahead of you.  And this blog serial thing is a little outside the Story Council’s bailiwick too, at least the department I’m accustomed to dealing with.

            And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an ep to finish writing, and then I am going to try to go to bed early because if the weather doesn’t turn too diabolical I may have a puppeeeeeeee visit tomorrow.‡‡ 

* * *

* Or facsimile.  I’m so tired of the terrible job of translating the medium that has been done on so many ebooks I’ve kind of gone off them for the moment.  I’ll still read them if e is the only medium is available, and they are useful when I’m STUCK SOMEWHERE and the only hard copy I have with me is the wrong thing.^  But knitting increasingly is the distraction of choice when it’s a dumb wait and I don’t know how long I’m going to be hung up.  I suppose it’s possible that some day I will have the willpower and the brain^^ to tackle a proper pattern with lace/cables/colourwork/intarsia/goblins, but in the meanwhile my blood pressure is very very very grateful for basic idiot stockinette and gentle little ribbing.       

^ The total brilliance of ebooks, as all of you know, whether you’ve succumbed to an ereader or not, is that you can have an entire LIBRARY to choose from on your Astarte equivalent.  I assume I’m not the only person who has had lifelong trouble deciding what exactly she’s going to want to be reading when in an airplane for ninety-six hours or whatever.  I take this slightly to extremes however.  What am I going to want to be reading standing in the check out queue at Sainsbury’s?  Depends on the queue.  Depends on whether they had organic broccoli.  Depends on whether I think I remembered accurately what didn’t get on my list.  Depends on if I saw a knitting magazine that appealed to me—and no, that doesn’t immediately answer the question.  I prefer reading my knitting magazines at home sitting next to the Aga which is keeping my cup of tea hot.  But having one in the basket while I’m waiting to pay and get out certainly has an effect on my mood.  

^^ . . . doubtful. 

** And of course have.  I don’t count pegasi or the Makepeace dragon sanctuary dragons as critters, but if there’s anyone out there who wants to challenge me on the subject of, say, foogits, it’s pistols at dawn, honeybun.   

*** So would I, of course.  

† Hope you brought lots of reading material.  And knitting. 

†† Although I never dated a Greek, let alone married him.  Nor have I ever found the ancient aphorism ‘it’s as easy to fall in love with a wealthy man as it is a poor one’ particularly true.  Although Gelasio wasn’t wealthy when he and Kes first got together.  And the thing about a lifestyle you can’t support is the shock when it ends.  There are going to be nights at Rose Manor when Kes really misses the Veuve Cliquot—and the account at the high-end wine shop on the corner of Broadway and Umpty Mumble.  

††† Frelling service ring at the frelling abbey tomorrow.  Frelling.  And Niall and I have a new handbell recruit AND SHE’S PICKING IT UP MUCH TOO FAST.  And let’s not even discuss my singing, after several months Nadia-free. 

‡ Buffy, yes.  And INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE.  But they were aberrations.  

‡‡ I AM SO NOT READY FOR THE NEW MEMBER OF THE FAMILY.  SO.  NOT.  READY.^ 

^ Olivia, you’re not reading this, right?

KES, 44

 

FORTY FOUR

 

The silky black rose-bush shadow took a couple of steps sideways as I approached the door, which was tactful of it.  This meant I didn’t have to wonder if it wanted my money or my life.  It.  It had feathering all along its belly and the streetlight, which left nothing to the imagination about screaming skulls, was not well-placed for illuminating the undercarriages of hairy black dogs.  I unlocked the door and began to open it.  And turned to look at the apparition.

            It lowered its head and its tail further.  It looked up at me through its eyelashes.  The very, very, very tip of its tail twitched pathetically.  It drooped.  It despaired.  It was all alone in a hostile universe.

            “They must adore you at the community playhouse,” I said.  “Not a dry eye and so forth.”

            It raised its head fractionally.  It moved one forefoot two-thirds of a micron forward, nearer me.  The tail twitched again.  The tail was epic.  It told sad stories of the death of kings.

            “You want to come in, don’t you?” I said.  “Stap me.  I am so screwed.  I bet the Friendly Campfire doesn’t allow pets.”  I walked through the door, leaving it open.  I flipped the light switch, dropped my knapsack on the bed (thud) and turned around.  She—when and how had I discovered she was a she?—was now standing in the doorway.  Her head had come up at least two microns.  Her ears were trying to prick.  The ecologically correct low-wattage light bulb in the ceiling lamp was doing pretty near zero for giving me a better look at her.  Black is very black at night.  I went over to the little table that had the welcome basket on it.  Fortunately it was only pretending to be a basket, and was made out of plastic.  I dumped its contents on the desk—an assortment of vile teabag tea in paper wrappers for that critical lack of freshness, tinfoil packets of instant coffee facsimile and hot chocolate I was willing to bet had no chocolate in it, Generic Hot Drink Whitener, white sugar, brown sugar, and Sugar Substitute of the Month Which Has No Calories But Will Give You The Interesting New Disease of the Year, Bleeding Ulcers and Dandruff.  Especially when ingested with Generic Hot Drink Whitener.  I rinsed the plastic basket out in the bathroom, filled it with water, and brought it gingerly back into the front room.  I set it down near the door.  “Thirsty?” I said.

            Her tail gave a definite if cautious wag.  She took two steps forward—which meant she was now half in and half out of cabin number seven of the Friendly Campfire Motel which probably didn’t allow animals—and lowered her head for a drink.  If this was the Silent Wonder Dog she was larger and hairier than I’d ordered.  Trust fate not to read the fine print. 

            She finished her drink, came the rest of the way into the cabin, and sat down.  I sat down on the bed so I was facing her.  We regarded each other. 

              Don’t do this at home, kids.

               Fleas, I thought.  Ticks.  Ringworm.  Lyme Disease.  Leptospira.  Probably not rabies.  You don’t generally get rabies in dogs unless you’re Old Yeller or live in Atticus Finch’s town.  Ringworm was bad enough.  Mom’s Ghastlies had picked it up at a dog show once and we’d all had it.

            The (possibly) Silent Wonder Dog stretched out her forelegs, little by little, till she was lying down in the classic New York City Library lion posture.  We continued to regard each other.  “You’re probably hungry, right?” I said.  “That is, after all, the purpose of humans, from a dog’s point of view, to provide food, so you don’t have to catch your own rabbits.  Or rats.  Or knock over your own garbage cans.  That’s what you’ve been training us for, the last forty thousand years.”

            The ears half-flattened and pricked again.  There was too much matted hair to tell a lot about her ears either—when I called her silky it was more a guess at what she ought to look like if her owner were taking proper care of her—but I thought they were long and dangly.  She had a long slim face and enormous black-brown eyes, and she was narrow for her height, and most of the height was leg.  Sighthound, I thought, but I’d need a better look at her in daylight.  This sounded like I was expecting her to be around when daylight came again.  O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.

            She put her face on her paws.  She sighed.  There was a long tragic history in that sigh.  There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me.  Tra la la.  The raven himself is hoarse, that croaks the fatal entrance . . . no, wait.

            “I could call you Sarah Siddons,” I said.  “Sid.” 

 

Another announcement.

 

Yes.  The doodle factory has begun operations.

            I know you’re due a KES tonight but Blogmom tells me she’s already receiving wistful queries, in the wake of my turning SHADOWS in last Sunday night, about the likelihood of my getting back to doodling any time soon.  Since you’ve all been waiting a year, this is perfectly reasonable.*  So I thought I’d better deal with that first. 

            I’d been planning on waiting till the end of the week when I should be able to provide slightly more impressive desk-in-process photos.  It’s not, repeat not, that I didn’t hit the ‘send’ button and immediately swing around and look despairingly at what used to be my office and is now a kind of storage facility for homeless parcels.  It took me two days just to dig out.  Believe me when I say that I have thought of the bell auction backlog EVERY DAY, because my office has been effectively impassable for the same year you’ve been waiting for your doodles, and I’m not tidy to begin with.**

            I am so not doing this again.***  And for those of you who are puzzled at why I have been quite such a nugatory no-show about the whole affair†, the view from here goes like this:  The New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund rolled into existence some time in early 2011.  I don’t remember exactly when the idea for the auction coalesced out of my overheated brain or when it seemed to me a good idea to add almost anything to the list that any of you out there expressed a willingness to spend money on . . . but I do remember that Blogmom was ready to set the thing up months before I pulled it together to send her what she needed. 

            And the reason I kept not pulling it together, aside from my general uselessness about almost anything practical, is . . . that PEGASUS II, due last summer, was showing an extreme unwillingness to be written.  In fact a total unwillingness to be written.  I wasted a lot of time refusing to believe this.  It wasn’t just my next book.  It was the frelling sequel†† to the book that ends on a cliffhanger so appalling that anything I can manage to do in KES looks like a mug of Maggie’s mum’s hot chocolate††† in comparison.‡  The prospect of merely not being able to afford to go on eating (nearly) paled in comparison with the horror of not finishing PEGASUS.  Finishing.  FINISHING.

            PEGASUS, which, as long-time blog readers know, started life as a short story for ELEMENTALS: AIR, wanted to be a trilogy?  Kill me.  Kill me now.

            So last August I set aside the semi-congealed, lumpy, overstuffed bungle that book two of the PEGASUS duology had become, and frantically began writing SHADOWS.‡‡  In the first place, I needed to keep eating.  In the second place, I couldn’t face telling Merrilee or my editor what had happened till I could honestly say that I was working on something else.  I whispered the dreaded ‘t’ word to Merrilee last September‡‡‡ and let her break it to my editor.

            The part I’m not telling you much about, and that I’m not going to tell you much about, is that I thought I really was going to get SHADOWS put through fairly quickly, but along about March this year a big fist of health/menopause/mind/heart/spirit stuff punched me hard, and EVERYTHING including SHADOWS   w e n t   i n t o   e x t r e m e   s l o o o o o o w   m o o o o o t i o n. . . .

            But things may be improving generally.  There is, for example, KES.  And I’ve sent SHADOWS in.§

            And the doodle factory went into production yesterday.  Watch this space.§§ 

* * *

* And leaving you to hang a little longer over the particular cliff at the end of KES 42 . . . pleases me, because I am the hellgoddess and, as blondviolinist pointed out on the forum, I enjoy your pain.  Mwa ha ha ha ha.

            Also, in the final crunch to finish SHADOWS^ I haven’t written any KES in a while, and I need to get on with that, I’m only a few eps ahead at the moment.  And just as much as you do I want to know what happens next, because KES, like everything else I’ve ever written, including cough-cough nonfiction^^, keeps surprising me.^^^  

^ EXCEPT I’M NOT RATBAGGING FINISHED.  I’ve spent the last two days cutting the freller—I cannot write short—and will be going on doing so for several more days yet.  Which is actually amazingly stressful.  Arrrgh.  

^^ Including this blog.  Which is mostly nonfiction, if of a perhaps slightly unusual kind. 

^^^ Which as every writer who has ever written anything worth reading has said in one form or another, is a good thing and a necessary thing.  A piece of writing you can order around, which is perfectly submissive to your fingers on the keyboard, is going to be dead and booooooring on the page. 

** I now also have a yarn problem.  At least this doesn’t require additional steel struts and granite pillars to shore up the weight-bearing floor.  

*** Yes, there will be a permanent doodle shop on the blog AFTER, REPEAT AFTER I fulfil the auction orders.  Did I say AFTER?  AFTER.  AAAAAAAAFTER. 

† I am a lifelong absent-minded disorganised dilettante who always believes she can do more than she can.^  But the overcommitted messes I get myself into are usually not this extreme. 

^ And I wonder why I’ve ended up with ME.  No, I don’t wonder all that much. 

†† I who never write sequels 

††† Have I mentioned that Maggie’s mum—I mean mom—makes the best hot chocolate? 

‡ Although I’ve had one or two really excellently cruel ideas about intercutting some of Flowerhair’s story. 

‡‡ The first twenty single-spaced pages of which have been sitting in a folder behind my desk for several years.  Almost nothing of said twenty pages remain, except the first-person high school girl narrator, and the short hairy guy from the Slav Commonwealth named Val whom she dislikes and distrusts on sight. 

‡‡‡ I knew there was something up with you, she said.  I just didn’t know what it was. 

§ Even if I’m still frelling tinkering with it.  Frelling. 

§§ The straightforward stuff first.  The one offs later. 

                One of the lesser wrong-going things last year was that I had a, er, stab at one of the auction knitting projects and promptly made a mess of that too, which was worse for morale than it should have been, first because my Secret Knitting Projects were all going the way of PEG II and second because I was beginning to pick up signs that in fact my money was not going to be welcome at the bell fund I thought I was raising it for.  This was very bad indeed for morale.  GAAAAH.  LIFE.  NO, IT’S NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND.  DON’T YOU HAVE SOMETHING ELSE?

            Meanwhile, I am a whole year older in terms of knitting nous.  And I will turn out the auction knitty things with aplomb.  Just not this week.

They let me near some bells, part two – guest post by Catherine

 

So while handbells practise finished the rest of the band rang up the tower bells and we went off to the other side of the church and into the ringing chamber.

Little, square, six-bell ringing chamber!

The handbells-only ladies left and we were joined by two chaps, D and R. G and her daughter C are also learning in the tower, so I’m not the only newbie. We had seven members of the band plus the three beginners. There was now no question that they were smelling new blood and wanting to keep it, which was not as creepy as it sounds and actually rather welcoming. I did get asked how I’d wound up at their practise and explained about this blog and the forum crowd enabling me into it, so they’re probably all reading this.‡‡‡ No pressure then.

I do have to say I’m thankful for this blog and the bit of research I’ve done already because knowing some basic theory is good. The bells were rung up and throughout the practise we alternated between the band doing some proper ringing and us beginners having one-on-one learning half the stroke. C is the best of us learners. I’m struggling with anticipating the bell taking the rope up but was reassured that it’s an instinct everyone has to learn to control. This would be why I got a little tap on the nose from the rope and pretty decent bop from the sally, there’s actually a little red mark on my left collarbone from it. By the end of my last go I was starting to get the hang of it, at this point concentrating really hard on not moving my arms until the bell moves them for me is what’s working. But it is working.

When everyone else was ringing plain hunt R talked G and I through the method a bit, then had us stand behind him and try to follow along while he rang the treble. ‡‡‡‡ I’m fairly certain it’s the wrong way to learn but I had the easiest time following by listening and counting each bell through the pattern of the method. That’s probably a relic of colour guard, following hits in the music (whatever you do, you do on the beats and when you’re counting ‘one’ is the down-beat [if you’ve ever watched a conductor it’s the bit where the baton goes straight down] so my brain automatically makes the ‘down-beat’ the first bell in the row of the method) makes sense to me. It’s funny, but the bells are using the same bit of my brain colour guard did. I am not complaining about this because it means I definitely can learn it.§

At the end J asked if they’d scared me off and I said no, I’d like to come back next week and it was agreed that I will. Yay! We’re going to attempt teacher-less handbells next week as G will be away for her mum’s birthday and J suggested it might be a good way to teach me plain hunt§§. I am irrationally excited by this.

All in all, I really enjoyed myself. I know it’s going to be a long and tricky road§§§ before I’m actually good at anything, but I like learning and this is going to be a fun challenge. And it felt right, like this is something that should be a part of my life and how has it taken so long for me to notice and get it in.

Sorry, CathyR, no gore.

Now, where’s that Giant Chocolate Meringue?±

Yum!

Update: I’ve had three more practises since I first wrote this and it’s going very well. Everyone is really nice and encouraging and M, who is captain at another tower and visiting St Square to help teach, has been working with me. We are making good progress, under his guidance I’m ringing almost entirely on my own and two weeks ago began learning how to lead (ring the treble) in rounds and stand my bell (balance it back up on its frame). I’ve met more of the band, which has quite a few more learners in it, and I’m really enjoying it.

We added a learners’ hour before handbells this past week so I was excited about having even more time on a rope! And it was entirely worthwhile, that extra time ringing made a world of difference. I’ve now got a better handle on standing, improved my technique a little, seen a very low-key stay break and that was all in the first hour! I’m still getting myself into trouble from time to time, but at least I’m getting myself out of it now, too. After handbells, when I went back into the tower for regular practice with the band, M had me ringing rounds on the two. At which point, without warning and only a tiny bit of instruction for me in practically the same sentence he called a change. Which I didn’t handle gracefully, but at least I handled (eventually). Later in the evening he gave me a choice, be smug in rounds or make it challenging (at least I knew this time he was going to start calling changes!). Of course I chose challenging! And it was better than the first time. Bells promote happiness.±±

* * * * *

‡‡‡ It’s a really good thing I genuinely enjoyed myself and on first impressions liked everyone I met, otherwise this would be really awkward. And I hope they all liked me (well, I didn’t get shoved out the door!) and are enjoying reading this.

‡‡‡‡ At this point, from the slightly further along point at which I’m writing this particular footnote, I’m watching everyone (the more people I can see, the better) as often as I can, trying to match what I can hear with what I can see. So far I get the sense that I’m going to learn through ears and eyes, or at the very least, that is what is going to help it come together for me, right before ringing whatever it is myself.

§ My friend who works across the road from me totally predicted that it would help. And, in proof that ringing is a small world, she’s friends with my tower captain’s daughter and a few others in the band know the family, too. There really will be no escape (not that I was planning one).

§§ Plain hunt is one of the first methods (okay, more like crawling in the baby steps of learning methods, but still, a step beyond staring at feet and wondering what they’re for) you learn, as I understand it. I’m hoping that if I can explain this right I’m understanding it well enough! I’ll talk through what the treble, the first bell, does (although all the bells do the same thing, they just start in a different place in the pattern). So the treble ‘hunts’ by moving through the places each bell takes, it starts in first as it’s one, then in the next row it rings two, then three, four, twice in five and then it goes back to one for two blows, by the second of which you’re back in rounds. Erm, I have no idea if that makes sense to any of you!

In the end we didn’t do it on handbells, but I have tower homework to learn it on Mobel.^

^ This is the bellringing app for iPhones and whatnots, the mobile version of Abel, and it’s a simulator for ringing. It’s not the same as being in the tower by a long shot, but it’s a good way to increase familiarity with how things sound and the patterns they follow. For me anyway.

§§§ There is a day in my future where I will be hiding under a piece of furniture, whimpering down the phone at my mother that I can’t do this. I will then crawl out and do it. At least I know this pattern of behaviour.

± This is the smallest one I have in the house. After all, it’s about midnight and Chloe and I are walking to the wool shop tomorrow, just to see what they have. Really. I have plenty of wool left over from the slippers to knit her a jumper and already bought what I need for the shawl.^

^ This is not going to end well, is it?+

+ You don’t want to know.

±± Probably even when you’re cursing them out.

Always new dranglefabbing challenges

 

I rang at a new tower tonight.

            The main problem with the frelling abbey, aside from the fact that it scares me to death and I ring accordingly, is that ringing, especially ringing for the low-level ordinary grind like myself, keeps getting cancelled.  If the United Pipe Fittings Orchestra and All Girl Guttering Ukulele Band aren’t having a concert in the cloisters, then the ringers who actually know what they’re doing and can count to forty-eight while they’re doing it* are ringing a quarter peal of Cantankerous Saturnalia Quadruple Maximus, as they did this past Sunday.**  And I need time on a rope, because I am a SLOW LEARNER and TWITCHY*** with it.

            I think I told you, a few weeks ago, my first Sunday back on the job at the abbey after the August break, when I tied Grandsire Triples in a knot and then broke it, and was having one of my regular attacks of I AM GIVING UP RINGING FOREVER, AND FURTHERMORE I AM DONATING ALL MY ORGANS TO SCIENCE THIS AFTERNOON, one of the women who lives locally and often comes Sunday afternoons when she knows the abbey is short-handed but is a member of the Extremely Scary† and High Level Fustian band, told me that Fustian had extra practises.  For stupid . . . I mean, for less advanced ringers,†† on Tuesdays.  She said, it’s for anyone, you can just come along.  And we ring lots of Grandsire Triples.  Will you be there? I asked, doing my pathetic thing again†††, and she said that she was there most weeks. 

            Open practises are the first and third Tuesdays of the month.  As I recall Fiona and I were up to no good a fortnight ago, but I had written ‘Fustian’ in my diary for tonight . . . and spent all day trying to bottle out.

            I went. 

            I left New Arcadia early so I would have time to get lost and fail to find a parking space and so on and then had no trouble whatsoever so I had to sit in Wolfgang for about ten minutes knitting frantically‡ before I crept out to lurk in the churchyard.  I took a lap around the church itself and it has something like twenty six doors so how am I supposed to guess which one to loiter at?  I chose what I thought was a promising tomb for leaning against (and knitting), where I could keep an eye on both the main door (despite being fairly sure that wherever the ringers entered it would not be the main door) and the door to the actual, you know, tower.

            Naturally it was neither of these.  Furthermore on Tuesdays they ring on the simulator so if you’re hanging around in the churchyard waiting for symptoms of ringing practise to manifest, the sound of the bells going up is not going to be one of them. 

            I might have eventually crept away defeated but fortunately I took another lap around the church and met someone striding purposefully toward the twenty seventh door which is almost frelling invisible in its dark and shadowed niche, and I squeaked, Bell ringing?  And she said yes, yes, right this way.

            It was not too bad.  The first thing was that I was sure the simulator would completely derail me.  Physically you ring as usual, but the real bells in the belfrey are all muffled and the sound you hear in the ringing chamber is off a computer hitched up to go ‘dong’ when the bell ropes are pulled.‡‡  It is disconcerting—but the disconcertingness wears off pretty quickly.  The second thing was that I never do well at new towers because I am an easily panicked twit.  The third thing was . . . what if Melinda was WRONG?

            But Melinda doesn’t seem to have been wrong.  I was greeted with a disarmingly convincing display of cordiality, and asked what I ring:  Grandsire Triples, I said humbly, Melinda said you ring lots of Grandsire Triples.  Certainly, said the ringing master, anything else?  Oh—well, I said, daring greatly, maybe a plain course of Stedman Triples?

            There were also a couple of learners even learnier than me, and you really don’t want to be the least and worst in a tower you’re visiting for the first time, so that was good too.  And the two known-by-me Fustian Scary People went out of their way to say something friendly to me‡‡‡.  I got out of the tricky ‘where do you ring’ question by saying that I was trying to ring at the abbey and finding it an uphill struggle, and everyone rolled their eyes and said, oh, the abbey.  Even one of the Scary People said that the business of ringing in a queue in the middle of a ballroom-sized space (the Fustian ringing chamber is relatively small and the circle of ropes is circular) is not ideal. 

          And not only did I get my Stedman Triples . . . it was a touch, not a plain course.  I was ‘unaffected’—which meant that the other bells changed places while I kept my plain-course line—so I was getting off easy.  But the ‘unaffected’ racket is an old teaching trick to make sure the learner is ringing the line and not just slacking off by learning where she’s going to meet which bell:  which is to say has done her homework properly.   I have done my homework properly.  Yaaaay.

           And everyone said, please come again.§  So I will.

            I am making no predictions about my brilliance at the abbey tomorrow however. 

* * *

* And back down again.  I can usually go up while pathetically ringing plain hunt on too dragonfired many bells.  It’s coming down where I am liable to come unstuck.  NO FRELLING BODY WHO HAS BEEN RINGING AS MANY YEARS AS I HAVE HAS ANY EXCUSE WHATSOEVER FOR EVER COMING UNSTUCK ON PLAIN SODBLASTED HUNT ON ANY NUMBER OF BELLS, UP TO AND INCLUDING 1,000,000,000,000.  ARRRRGH.  

**  One of the women at tonight’s practise had rung in it and told me in an off hand manner, like you might say ‘nice day’ or ‘I like your leg warmers’^ that it was enjoyable.  She would probably enjoy strolling over Niagara Falls on a tightrope.  She would probably enjoy the view and the bracing air.  

^ I am wearing my leg warmers.  They are performing their function.  KNITTING IS USEFUL.  Pass it on.+ 

+ I know, I know.  You sock people have known that forever.  

*** Twitchy is bad on the end of a bell rope. 

† I rang a wedding at Ditherington on Saturday.^  Ditherington doesn’t have its own band any more, so a band ringing a wedding there is always a jumble.  One of the women whom I had not met before learnt at the abbey, and knows Scary Man (who has been there forever) and referred to him as Scary Man.  Not even ‘the scary man’ but Scary Man.  I only didn’t fall down laughing because I didn’t want to stab myself with my knitting needles. 

^ The bride was thirty five minutes late.  Just saying.  Fortunately I had my KNITTING. 

†† I wouldn’t go to a proper Fustian practise unless someone held a gun to my head and I might just tell them to shoot me. 

††† Going ALONE to a NEW TOWER is VERY DAUNTING.  You don’t even have to be pathetic to think so.  Melinda is also a very good ringer and very nice, the kind of person you’d always be more inclined to say ‘yes’ to an invitation to ring if it included her. 

‡ I also realised that I was sweating with terror and therefore removed my leg warmers.  

‡‡ I’m not sure what is happening in the belfry—whether you’re pulling the bells or the simulator.  Next time I’ll ask. 

‡‡‡ Granted there’s going to be some self-selection for niceness at a practise specifically aimed at the lacking and the lousy.^  Still.  There are some seriously grim and intimidating people who feel it is their duty to put in time bringing beginners on, but they aren’t enjoying it and you can see them not enjoying it. 

^ When I was discussing the possibility of going to the extra Fustian practise with some other ringing friends we were sniggering over the names of certain Fustian ringers who would not be there.  And they weren’t. 

§ This is good ringing manners.  But they wouldn’t have had to sound like they meant it.