A Not So Bell-Free Holy Week, Continued

 

I didn't sleep very well last night either.*  And when I finally rolled groaning out of bed I thought, well, never mind, I don't have to do anything at any kind of speed today.** So we got down to the mews*** and I settled in for a long slow day of putting ooooooone syllllllllable after another when . . . Niall popped up in my email.  Hey, he said, my Tuesday handbell gang are ringing a peal of Constabulary Cantabile Maximus, which I don't ring . . . and I was thinking, it's Holy Week so there's no tower practise, let's get Wild Robert to ring handbells. 

            Note that Niall had said last night† that he was going to stay in tonight and revise†† for the several peals he is ringing in the near future.  But I am a flibbertigibbet and a frivolous baggage, and I immediately thought, Hey!  What a great idea!  —This was, however, about 2:30 in the afternoon and we were talking about tonight.  I'll email him, I emailed back to Niall†††, but I bet we don't get an answer.  —Wild Robert is a trifle notorious for not answering emails.  ‡

            I then went back to my syllables‡‡ and . . . about three minutes later there was a mad flurry of email headings surging over a corner of my screen, which was Niall and Wild Robert sorting out our evening for us.  For reasons unknown to ordinary ringers Wild Robert's Tuesday tower does meet even during Holy Week.  But, he said, if you want handbells, we could meet before and then you could stay on for tower practise.  Hey!  Wait for me! I yelled, finishing a syllable.

            Suddenly it's almost three o'clock and Niall is picking me up at six.  AAAAUGH.  So of course I paid strict attention to finishing my chapter, right?  Wrong.  Of course I reached for Pooka.  I had absurd visions of getting through that second lead of Cambridge.‡‡‡  When I tucked Pooka the Magic Bell App iPhone away again to take hellhounds for a somnolent hurtle I marched along going 'one two three four five six one two three four five six one two three four five six get your butts in gear guys one two three four five six I said MOVE IT one two three four five six one two three four five six. . . .'  Have I mentioned that ringing methods on handbells is a Count or Die proposition?  Except you may die anyway.

            Chappington Fritworthy is one of these insanely pretty English villages where you say, oh, come on, get the TV crews out of here and take your ridiculous plastic facades with you.  It's another one, like Tir nan Og, which isn't actually on any main road, so you trundle along a series of exciting back roads, playing dodgem with the SUV army that now owns the English countryside grrrrrrrrrr§, although there are a lot more roads to Chappington Fritworthy they're just all of them little.  And whichever one you're on will nonetheless spill you out next to the village green and the pond.  All roads to Chappington Fritworthy lead to Chappington Fritworthy's pond.  There's a duck house on Chappington Fritworthy's pond, out in the middle, on little stilt legs, with a ramp.  The duck house is thatched.  It's that kind of a village.  

            We were a little early so I wandered around muttering under my breath about insanely pretty villages and how anyone who lived here should be required to do 200 hours of community service in an inner city council estate.  Wild Robert appeared eventually on his lean mean racing machine . . . Wild Robert is possibly the only person I have ever met who is thinner than his bicycle.§§   I'm sure he can walk through closed doors simply by turning sideways and slipping through the crack between the door and the jamb.

            Anyway.  We rang handbells.  Mostly we rang a couple of long touches of bob minor, and it was hard to decide whether it was more gratifying that there was actually the occasional fractional pause in the perfect rhythm of Wild Robert's ringing or more droolingly infuriating that that was all there was, since he's not a handbell ringer and hasn't since the last time he rang with Niall and me—which must be at least three years ago.  Well, my bob minor has improved since then.  And then we rang . . . the first lead of Cambridge minor.  Which I am still a little creative with but it is, as I said last Thursday, recognisable.  In my defense I wasn't planning on having to bring it out again for public inspection till next Thursday—a lot can happen in two days.   The droolingly infuriating thing here is that Wild Robert rang frelling Cambridge frelling Minor just as competently as he rang bob minor—it isn't fair.  I also can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing that when Niall said 'let's try the first lead of Cambridge' Wild Robert didn't gaze at me with disbelief and amazement but merely raised his bells and looked thoughtful.

            Then we stayed for tower practise.  I keep allowing myself to forget how much fun it is ringing for Wild Robert just because getting to any of his practises any more is so dranglefabbing impractical.  Touch of Grandsire doubles! he said.  Robin, you take the five, that's a good bell to call it from.  Blah erg.  I keep trying to sweep my conducting career back under the rug again.  This time however I wrote the instructions down, so I could conceivably do it again some time without Wild Robert there to prompt . . . and since Niall was following the proceedings closely, I suspect I'm probably For It sooner rather than later. 

            There were various other dramas§§§ and then Wild Robert called for frelling Union again.  He had Tilda and Niall and me ringing it at Crabbiton whenever that was, so it has a faint haze of almost-familiarity, but it's pretty faint and very almost, and then he insisted on calling a touch, and what happens to you if you're at the back when a call is made in Union is indescribable torment and remember I said that ringing methods on handbells is Count or Die and you may die anyway?  Counting won't save you, trying to stagger through a call at the back of Union.  Look, I'm bleeding.

* * *

* I dreamed the hellhounds and the roses were talking back.  It wasn't funny in the dream.  

** It's also been our first really warm day, which has unravelled hellhounds.  They're all over me when I rattle the harnesses but as soon as we get through the door and the sunlight goes wham they fall into limp skeins of vaguely dog-shaped unravelledness.   

*** And the bad news is . . . the hospital cancelled our Falling Down clinic.  Or rather, they say that Peter was signed up for the wrong clinic and they don't have space in another Falling Down clinic till mid May.  Right at the moment the NHS is not high on my list of favourite gigantic incompetent faceless bureaucracies.  

† Over a beer at the pub.  Ahem.  

†† Weird British verb for study.  You don't study for exams, you revise for them.  I always imagine revising your ideas about the worth of formal education. 

††† How did we live without email?  —Well, I, phone-allergic that I am, stayed home more.  

‡When he's on the [bell] district admin, as he has a habit of being, this has been known to make other people cranky.  

‡‡ There may also have been a little Twittering involved.  

‡‡‡ Not even CLOSE.  I get to making horrible places—about halfway through the second lead—with a second bell to worry about—and I crumble into a gibbering idiot.  GAAAAAAAAAH. 

§ Niall's car and Wolfgang are vying for last place in the Hampshire's Tattiest Vehicle list.  His is a couple of years younger, but it has more miles on it, and he has more stuff in his back seat than I do—boxes of maps and professional kit (he's an engineer)—but none of them shed dog hair, or require to be towelled off after a muddy hurtle. 

§§ Given that neither his physique nor his ringing ability is human . . . he could be fey, of course, but I think he's probably part demon. 

§§§ Including a long touch of bob doubles that had two of the other ringers asking eagerly, how much of a quarter was that . . . so I think maybe I'll ask Wild Robert if I should invite either of them to ring a practise quarter with us.