No, no, don't look at the clock

 

Well I'm in trouble. It's already mmph o'clock in the morning and I haven't started a blog post yet.

The day started by going to the dump. No, I mean really. It wasn't quite that if I was planning on getting five people—five!—in my house at the same time, something had to leave first, but there was that aspect. Also all that striving with the jungle over the last few days had produced an impressive large-plastic-garden-sheet load of detritus, of a volume roughly equivalent to a medium-sized Alp, and I needed to do something with it.* So hellhounds—walled in by forty-seven grocery bags of clothing I should have given to the Salvation Army years ago, and a lot of empty bottles that go ping-ping-jingle-jingle-jingle-rattle as you drive down the road, I am very grateful I live only a few minutes from the bottle bank—and I went to the dump on our way to the morning hurtle.

Then we came back to the mews where I dithered and wrung my hands over the competing necessities of finishing the discussion/interview that is due tomorrow** . . . and the possibility that I would be forced to ring Cambridge before Alicia and Bronwen arrived this evening. If I'd had even half my wits about me I would have realised that it was not the possibility but the likelihood of being forced to ring Cambridge, because Alicia was dependent on SouthWest Trains, which is like being dependent on the Borg for mercy, compassion, and the development of individual autonomy***, and Bronwen's ferry from Skye is invariably besieged by sea monsters.

So . . . never mind deadlines.† I decided to ring Cambridge. But since I was short of time I wanted to concentrate on that frelling third lead—yes, we're up to the third lead, more or less, which is giving both Niall and Colin unwelcome scope for jokes about how we can now all turn around and go out the way we came††: very funny ha ha ha ha ha, speak for yourselves, boys—so I decided to risk ringing it on Abel, the bell software on my laptop, where you can choose your starting point, which crucial subapplication was left out of the iPhone version. And . . . I managed to find another way to screw it up, which is to say that I once again thought there was something wrong with the software which is to say I am a clueless buffoon (again). So I got back to the cottage in time††† to blurt out my latest apologies and extenuating circumstances when Niall showed up in his appallingly on-time way. . . . Colin came in on the end of these and said 'excuses, excuses' while I was turning on my laptop to prove that I was being undermined by a shifty, ill-natured computer programme . . . and Niall looked at the problem for three and a half seconds (very like what happened the other day for another one of my problems) and said, I think you're hitting the wrong keys. . . .

I was hitting the wrong keys.

Whimper. I was not meant for bell software. I want the individual-lead option added to the iPhone so I can stay in what passes in bell-software terms as my comfort zone. Comfort zone! Hahahahahaha.‡

So I was now wholly sapped and sabotaged by my own idiocy and they were expecting me to ring Cambridge? Well, yes. There was a whole HOUR of Cambridge before Alicia finally showed up and saved me. Ringing plain hunt on four/eight was then peaceful and restorative if not precisely quiet . . . and then Bronwen showed up and The Horror Began Again because Niall decided we should ring plain hunt on all ten—hey! I'd be happy to sit out and knit!—I can't count to ten on handbells!‡‡ Especially not when I'm on one of the inside pairs, which go in strange anti-parallel directions!

The tea and biscuits were excellent, however.

As was supper, when we finally got that far. And the knitting, although Alicia doesn't knit, she embroiders.‡‡‡ And Bronwen, bless her clever little fingers, is going to provide some neat plain-green Secret Project #1 squares, which is probably cheating but I don't care. Us beginning knitters need support and comfort while we are on that diabolical quest for neatness (and square squares) ourselves.

And I really need to go to bed. I still have to meet a deadline . . . later today.

* * *

* I considered building an impenetrable redoubt as an alternative to hoping that the jungle would develop impenetrability in this last twenty-four hours—don't I feed you enough, you lot? Can't you do something for me for a change?—but I decided this was probably unsporting. And as it happens it was nearly twilight by the time I finally dragged Alicia and Bronwen outdoors and forced them to look at my garden. I rather feel about gardens the way I feel about music: they're supposed to be shared. And since I'm a cantankerous cow, my garden(s) doesn't get shared much.

And they pretty much looked stunned and went 'mmhmm' and went hastily back indoors again. But that was probably a combination of the lingering Trauma of Handbells and the prospective trauma of hurtling hellhounds . . . and now they're being threatened by thirty-foot roses? And all this is before dinner.

** Of Which More Later when I know when it's going to be posted.

*** Or depending on Hollywood to make a good movie. Roger Ebert, my hero. http://bit.ly/m0lyoJ

Yes. Thank you, @radmilibrarian.

† Deadline? What's a deadline?

†† Have I bored you about method structure enough yet that you realise that if you fold a bell pattern down the middle, the second half is the mirror image of the first? So if you have a brain that works like that, yes, you only have to learn half the wretched method, and then you can do it again backwards. GAAH.  For the rest of us, mirror image is worse than learning a whole frelling new pattern, because it's just familiar enough to be horribly confusing. —Specifically: Cambridge has five leads, so halfway through the third lead is halfway through the plain course.  Mirror time.  Ugggh.

††† In time to drag the hoover, roaring and gnashing its carpet brushes at me, out from under my bed and sic it on the shocking accumulation of spider webs, hellhound hair and dropped geranium petals that form a protective coating over my floors. I don't suppose there's a lot I can do about the spiders^ but why do my chosen live companions both fauna and flora have to be so messy? And the hellhounds and I can't be solely responsible for the amount of dirt that gets tracked indoors. It must be those spiders.

^ Barring the pet bat

‡ It's just a good thing Niall—and Colin—are really desperate to ring handbells. . . . Um . . . Wait a minute, is it a good thing??

‡‡ Can I count to ten for any reason and under any circumstances as such circumstances might be met in my normal daily life and require such accounting?^ Let's not go there.

^ Most time signatures don't go higher than eight either, I can barely count semiquavers, and I'd rather not think about hemidemisemiquavers at all.

‡‡‡ She is embroidering this amazing Chinese bird-and-flowers wall panel, and yes, my old embroidery impulses are twitching.