Unexpected Pleasures

 

As I poured lumpily (a sort of bad-gruel consistency) out of bed this morning I thought snarlily that I'm forgetting what it feels like not to be tired all the time.  Grrrrr.   Even a new knitting book through the mail slot barely shook my glutinous mood.  Second hot day* today so at least the hellhounds were nearly as floppy as I was, and we took turns grumbling on the ends of our leads and trying to lean on the other two.  It was not going to be a great day.  I already knew that.  So while it was disappointing that I'm still totally frelling failing to get through the sodding second lead to Cambridge minor—practising at lunch on Pooka for handbells this afternoon—it wasn't exactly surprising.

            I'm also sulking under a cloud because Peter's Falling Down Clinic got cancelled—or rather it never was a Falling Down Clinic and therefore Peter got cancelled.  But I decided I was going to make a fast bolt into Mauncester anyway—I need more yarn for my hellhound blanket.**  And you don't seriously expect me to go to a yarn shop without cruising, do you?  No, I didn't buy any more yarn*** but I did buy another book.†  And . . . mmmm.††

            I then realised that my handbell deadline was dangerously near and I was not going to have time for another quick assault on that second godsblasted lead of Cambridge, frell frell frell frell, so I leaped into the Batmobile††† and rocketlaunched for home.  And, of course, narrowly missed running down Niall who was strolling up my cul de sac when I arrived.  Colin also arrived with distressing promptness so we had to . . . ring something.‡

            What do you want to ring? said Niall.  —This is always a loaded question.

            Well, we could have a nice little burst of bob minor just to warm up, I said hopefully.  Or, I suppose . . . that first lead of Cambridge.

            Cambridge, Niall said instantly.

            Sigh.

            I'm still totally failing to get through the second lead, I said.  I'll ring it off the page, if you like, I added (glumly).  And fetched my Ringing Circles‡‡ and (siiiiighing) turned it to the appropriate page. 

            So we drilled through the first and second leads a few times . . . and since it was frelling Niall and frelling Colin, we rang through the entire plain course a few times, just because they can, although my brain shut down‡‡‡ beyond the second lead.  After a few more goes of just the first two leads, Colin said, in his ghastly jovial way, take the book away from her!

            And, you know . . . I was ringing the second lead.  I wasn't ringing it very well—I was ringing it a good deal worse than I was ringing the first lead last week—but there were certain signs of cognitive connection, even if I did need kind of a lot of prompting.  Yes.  I was ringing it.  In spite of the horrible places.§

            Third lead next week, Niall said brightly:  And then you just turn around and do the whole thing backwards. 

             AAAAAAUGH. 

* * *

* Way too much pasty bare flesh on display.  Ewwwwww.  Takes me a few weeks every year to readjust, let alone contribute.  No, no!  I want my long sleeves!  And shorts are mostly more trouble than they're worth because wearing 'em requires changing every time I want to take hellhounds for a proper hurtle.  We can tittup daintly around town in shorts, but as soon as the least hint of countryside appears—and this includes some of the wilder and woollier gardens, where the brambles reach over fences, driveways and parked cars and the nettles burst out of the cracks in the pavement under your feet—I need my denim.  I've been stung through 'light summer trousers' and the whole cropped/pedal-pusher thing is for Casual Friday at the corporate highrise.   I look at these jokers in their cool edgy street cred threads and . . . snicker.  I suppose it all depends on your definition of the real world.  I also garden in long denim jeans, but that is not merely because my excellent, healthy, well fed soil produces a fine crop of nettles every season, but also the fact that I never know what I'm going to be allergic to this year/week/afternoon and the huge itchy red weals get boring.  

** And a few other tedious incidentals.  Velcro, for example.  Do you remember my telling you last year about buying a Window Invader-Repellent Protection Kit which is basically a roll of fine netting and some stick-on Velcro, and you cut to size?  Except for the fact that they don't supply anything like enough Velcro, which means that your netting tends to blow off, with a lot of eager bees^, wasps, mosquitoes and further assorted undesirable flying evil-doers in a sharp regimental pattern close behind.  ARRRGH. 

^ Peter finally rehung his door-netting yesterday.  I don't know what it is, but the moment he comes indoors after lunch—if there is sunlight, he's out in it—and goes upstairs for his snooze, the buzzing hordes start divebombing me, wimpishly at the kitchen table.  I rescue bees, of course, but I'd rather not have to.  And there's the whole monotonous business of waiting for her to stop on a clear bit of window so I can get my wineglass over her, and then imploring her to climb up the side dranglefab you you wretched insect so I can get the piece of cardboard over the mouth of the glass without pinching any of her legs, and then taking her out the front door which is kept shut, figuring out which way the wind is blowing and tossing her downwind.  She is usually not happy during this business, even I do manage not to pinch her legs, and there is usually language inside the glass as well as out.  Yesterday another of the fat-thumb-sized bumblebees came in and I addressed her as one addresses an old friend:  (*&^%$£"!!!! what are you doing here again???  She flew quietly around the room once or twice—I've told you the way you actually feel the draught of a bumblebee's wings if she flies near you—and then landed on the window, crept to the centre of a pane and stopped.  I slapped the wineglass over her and . . . she immediately crawled up the side and settled against the hollow of the bottom.  I whipped the cardboard under/over the glass and took her outside;  she was brrrring gently, but there were no tantrums.  I took the cardboard off and she . . . flew away. 

             I think she was an old friend.  I think she knows the drill. 

*** I know.  I'm letting the side down.  But let me finish something and thus prove that I can and then . . . stand back. 

† Two in a day.  That's baaaaad.  I have, in fact, and believe it or not, developed some resistance to the General Diabolical Appealingness of All Knitting Books, chiefly by way of only wanting, supposing I could or had the time, to knit one or two of the projects on offer, even if I find three-quarters or so of them interesting as concepts.  But this book, not only is it cushions, so, you know, square, none of this fitting nonsense, but I want to knit nearly everything in it.  

†† Yes, yes, okay, the book comes under the ooh!  Shiny! reflex.  But you know there's a curious satisfaction to having to buy more yarn for a specific project.^  It may only be a (raggedy, ice-cream-cone-squared) hellhound blanket . . . but you're knitting it.  You're FRELLING KNITTING IT.  It counts. 

^ Given, that is, that it's cheezy acrylic and you don't have to worry about dye lots. 

††† Did Robin ever get to drive the Batmobile—on his lonesome?  I sure don't remember it. 

‡ I could have tried distracting them with knitting books.  But I don't think it would have worked. 

‡‡ http://www.cccbr.org.uk/pubs/images/ringingCircles.jpg  Probably the best-known of the how-to-ring books.  My copy is so drawn-in, marginal-noted and falling to pieces I've been thinking about (gasp) buying a new copy.  You'll notice from the plain bob minor (Yes!  That's the notorious bob minor!) on the page behind that the lines for both the treble and the two are marked, so if you're ringing the 1-2 in hand you're all set. 

‡‡‡ With a sound like a handful of mud hitting the floor, splat.  

§ I'll post a picture of the diagram one of these days.^ 

^ Oh, and of the knitting books. . . .