Staying out of the Rain

 

Hellhounds have just fallen on their dinner like ravening fiends.*  Yaay.  This would, however, be more impressive if they hadn't wholeheartedly ignored their lunch.  I acknowledge this was not entirely the fault of the standard sighthound anti-food bias.

            The purpose of dozens of ever more apparently precise ways to look up local weather predictions is to burden you with a false sense of guidance and counsel.  I have I think five weather aps on Pooka ** plus the Met Office at the ends of my googling fingers.***  They all said scattered light rain today.  I forced myself to get out of bed this morning when the hurricane began trying to lift said bed off the floor with increasingly powerful gusts into the canopy, which was belling out like a spinnaker.  The lash of cold water in the face was also quite reminiscent of my sailing days, although at least it wasn't briny this morning.†

            When I finally stayed out of bed†† long enough to let hellhounds out of the crate and get dressed and acknowledge that the day had begun††† it was teeming down so hard you could see the pebbles jump, like a kind of meteorological tiddlywinks.  Hellhounds were staring at me hopefully.  You won't like it, I said.  They knew that whatever it was it was bad when I put their raincoats on.‡  We lasted about fifteen minutes outdoors:  by which time we were all soaked to the skin:  there is some excuse, perhaps, for nylon dog coats, but my expensive human raincoat is frelling Goretex.  The All Stars were going squish, squish, and the rain was running down inside my jeans.  UGGGGH.

            We went down to the mews in less than a good temper.  And, later, while hellhounds stared at their lunch with undisguised loathing, Peter, on his way upstairs for his post-prandial nap, said, I think it's beginning to clear off.  Yes.  Certainly.  That explains why, a little later on our way back to the cottage for handbells, I couldn't see out of Wolfgang's windscreen even with the wipers on HIGH. 

            Hellhounds got another fifteen minutes' mini-hurtle and another soaking, and retired crossly to their nice dry den.‡‡  I had handbells.

            As I keep saying, the ME is not in a good mood, so I'm delighted not to be struggling with Cambridge on handbells just now.  At the same time, bringing on a beginner is hard work—for everybody.  There's the frantic identification that makes you worry so much about how awful a time your beginner is having‡‡‡ that you go wrong ringing a plain course of idiot's rapture.  Then there's the going to sleep at the wheel/bells because if you have to ring one more plain course of idiot's rapture you are going to run away to sea and spend the rest of your life being slapped in the face by the cold briny.§   So Colin, who likes to complain about his short attention span anyway§§, got creative.  I HATE CREATIVE.  No, no, I hate creative in handbells.  The known—the learnable—stuff  in handbells is QUITE BAD ENOUGH.§§§  Also, Colin and Niall worry that I'm not being brought on while we're all trying to bring Gemma on.  This no doubt explains why I got snorgled into ringing the 5-6 to bob major (eight bells), with Gemma reading it off the page.  I don't know the 5-6!  Somebody!  Please go wrong and let me out!  Please! 

            . . . Hellhounds finally got a proper hurtle after this.  I had some frenzy to wear off, and it was raining enough less hard we could kind of dart among the drops. 

* * *

*  Sort of.  They were SO HUNGRY that they came out of their corner^ INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR for their food.  All bright eyes and pricked ears and very sitting-up sits.  I put the food down, they looked at it and . . . there was an instant slump and a backing nervously away, looking uneasily over their shoulders and exchanging anxious glances.  I let this go on for thirty seconds or so and then took pity and put the bowls back in their corner.  Back in the corner and CORRECTLY ALIGNED.^^  Then they fell on it like ravening fiends. 

^ As seen last night in the action-eating shot+ 

+ Which was difficult to get.  Hellhounds are dubious enough about bowls of food anyway.  When the hellgoddess starts lurking in strange parts of the kitchen and holding small black boxes up to her face while (apparently) staring at them, they assume the worst.  

^^ I have my suspicions that Correct Alignment varies with the phases of the moon, and if I could figure out that particular continuum our successful eating ratio would go up by at least 10%.  

** I only use four.  The fifth needs a new update from the mother ship about every 6.2 hours and this gets old fast.  Especially when every now and then they make you pay for it.  It's not like they're any more accurate than the other ones. 

*** http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html 

† Whooah.  If I'm starting to get sea-water through my landlocked first^ storey bedroom window, I am going into another line of work.  I worry about the membrane between the worlds. . . . 

^ American second 

†† I haven't got TIME to sleep nine or ten hours every frelling night. 

††† The day had begun hours ago.  After I shut the window on the hurricane I put a pillow over my head.  And slept through my alarm. 

‡ Noooooo!  Not the . . . RAINCOATS!  

‡‡ Since the crate is draped in a three-seater-sized sofa throw both to make it a little more decorative than a Large Metal Cage Taking Up Three Quarters of the Floor Space in My Kitchen and also to make it more of a den, you could just about see the billows of hellhound steam curling out the door. 

‡‡‡ And if she has too bad a time she might stop coming.  

§ It wouldn't work.  Handbells are small and portable.  And think of your captive audience of potential learners.  Mwa hahahahaha.

§§ This is a man who has rung pushing a thousand full peals:  three and three-quarters hours or so of a single method where there are strict rules disallowing any repetition of your route through the method^ and requiring precise accuracy of that route.   And he's conducted quite a few of them.  His latest little toss-off is that someone asked him to compose a new method in honour of the newly-hung ring of bells that they're going to ring it on, and to conduct a peal of it.  This makes my brain hurt just thinking about it . . . no, just trying not to think about it.  When he's figured it out he'll email the method line to everyone and then they'll all meet on the day and ring a peal of a brand new method none of them has ever rung before.^^  

^ Allowing for the numbers of variations possible on the number of bells.  Doubles or minor you have to repeat because there just aren't that many permutations of five or six bells.  By the time you hit triples—seven working bells—you've got lots of permutations to choose from. 

^^ He says it's not that big a deal.  There are lots of computer-generated methods these days.  All you have to do is pick a nice one, and . . . AAAAAAAAAUGH.  I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE.  

§§§ Look, the three of you just go ahead and ring minor, it's what Gemma needs, to grind away on minor.  I'll knit.  See?  Knitting.  Nice knitting.  —They kept taking my knitting away from me.  Whimper.