I am not looking forward to writing this post

 

Okay, the good news.  I'm better.  I'm still a whole lot less than optimum, and I doubt I'll be having a voice lesson this Monday either, but I'm definitively better.

            I started getting better pretty much the moment I put my resignation letter through the door of the tower captain of New Arcadia.

            Yes.  You read that right.   I've just quit my home tower.  My beloved home tower, where my beloved bells live.  My beloved bells that I've been breaking my butt to raise some of the money for the restoration of.  My beloved bells that from where I'm sitting tonight I may never ring again. 

            It's a long story, really dating back seven years, when I joined.  New Arcadia is one of those towers where Things Are Done A Certain Way.  There are a lot of human groups like this.  It's one of the reasons I'm not a big group-joiner;  I'm mostly really bad at doing things A Certain Way Because That Is The Way They Are Done.  What?  Why?  But . . . bells.  I love ringing.  And you need other people to ring with.  Okay, I can do this people thing.  Probably.  And it'll be good for my character.  Probably.* 

            Fast forward to the beginning of this year, when we found out that our bells needed a big expensive whack of restoration work, and considered ways and means to raise the money.  In hindsight I can now remember (also I've discussed my no-win situation with people with better memories than mine) that there were several good ideas that were buried without trial because This Is Not The Way This Was Going to Be Done.

            Those other good ideas, however, mostly needed more than one person to make happen, and I was still free to go off in my own clueless little rogue way and try to raise money to my own (clueless) little rogue system.

            You know how that ended.

            In hindsight, hindsight being wild and wonderful and perfect and beautiful and a big pain in the ass, we—that is, you my readers and I—were a victim of our own success.  I suspect that if I'd raised £15.76 they'd have taken my money with a pat on the head and a kind smile.  But noooooo.  I had to go and raise a lot.**  You know, like, a conspicuous lot.  Somebody CONSPICUOUSLY doing something Not The Way It Has Been Decreed It Will Be Done!!!  Arrgh!  The Empire may fall!***

            Sometimes my body is brighter than I am.†  I find it interesting, now, with the savage lens of that relentless ratbag hindsight, that this lurgy first whapped me up longside the head last October, which is when the first crunch between my potential donation and the—ahem—unwillingness of the bell fund admin to view my nasty rogue money and me with any favour became visible or possibly I mean audible.  CRUNCH.  But in the first place, the sale/auction was already launched, and in the second place I loved the idea of drawing silly doodles to earn money for my bells.  And in the third place, I can be dumb as a post when I want to be.

            Well.  There's more, but I'm veering wildly over the line of discretion as it is.  There's been other stuff that has cast doubt on my future tenure at New Arcadia, but this business of the bell fund is the big one.  And I'm a homeopath and I totally believe that the mind and body are the same critter—and that if the mind is being dumb as a post the body may well try to get its attention.  I've had a swallowing-razors sore throat for a fortnight—something that never happens to me††, just by the way—so I can't talk?  Er—what is my body trying to tell me?

            So I've resigned.  The last paragraph of my letter is as follows:  'I have had a lot of time to think this last fortnight, while I've been ill.  And what I have decided is that I will no longer remain somewhere my loyalty, commitment and hard work are not appreciated.'  And as I said at the beginning of this post, after two paralytic weeks, the lurgy finally started shifting pretty much the moment I put my letter through the tower captain's door.

            So, where does that leave me—and you?  Especially the many of you who are still waiting for your books and doodles?  I have done no doodles since I've been ill these last weeks;  Fiona was due to come next week, but I've put her off because while there's plenty of other stuff she could be doing, what she ought to be doing is hauling the last or at least the second-to-last load of sale/auction stuff to the post office, and that's not going to happen.  I doubt I'm going to achieve any major inroads on the doodle backlog till I get SHADOWS in some shape to be read by my editor.  It has really not been a good year.  The overlapping story to this one is about PEG II crashing and burning last summer—remember 'dumb as a post'?  I didn't want to notice why PEG II wasn't cooperating, even when not noticing was driving me to that final edge of despair that I might not be a story-teller any more—and then frantically starting SHADOWS because I need to get paid.  Because of PEG II and SHADOWS I††† was late getting the sale/auction stuff organised for Blogmom to put up;  by the time the orders were in I was hip-deep in SHADOWS and by the time I realised the bell fund was doing the Icy British Ignoring Thing . . . I couldn't deal with that too, so I didn't.‡  Subconsciously . . . this is a lot of the reason I've been so slow getting on with the orders.  I've blamed SHADOWS, and yes, SHADOWS is eating my life.  But it's less SHADOWS than creeping demoralisation.  Doodling is fun.  But I'm supposed to be doing this for my bells, and . . .

            Okay.  The money is still the money, and it's still going to go to bell restoration.  There are lots of bells out there that need work, some of them even local.  When I've calmed down a little, when I've got used to the idea that I'm no longer a New Arcadia ringer‡‡, when I've got SHADOWS and the rest of the doodles done . . . I'll investigate other options.  New Arcadia has a few—ahem—unique problems.  Generally speaking I'm not expecting most bell admins to feel that money a writer raised by selling doodles, books and other oddments to her readers is unsuitable.  I'm hoping that I might find a local-enough tower that I might even ring there occasionally.  

            And me?  I'll keep ringing.  I can ring for Colin on Mondays.  I'm going to make another attempt to start ringing somewhat regularly at Forza:  according to Gemma, Forza needs ringers, even dubiously mediocre ringers like me.   My old home tower also meets on a Friday;  it's too far away from New Arcadia to go every week, but I might try to go occasionally.  I can't, at the moment, imagine joining another tower and getting involved in the day to day and week to week running of it, or even getting put on the 'regulars' list for ringing weddings.  But I'm pretty burnt out.

            Burnt out hell.  I'm angry and baffled and miserable.  What I said about lying in bed last Sunday morning listening to my bells and weeping?  Yes.  Big time.  I knew, last Sunday, that I was going to be writing a letter to put through the tower captain's door this week. 

            Handbells tonight with the usual crowd was somewhat soothing to the broken heart.

            But my bells.  My bells. . . .  

* * *

* It hasn't been good for my character.  But that's another story.

** The grisly truth is that I still don't have the final sums—partly because I'm so behind in getting stuff out and therefore can't have the final postage figures.  But I promised the bell fund £2000, which I think is pretty near accurate. 

*** You know, the Empire fell a while ago.              

† Not that this always takes a lot.  I haven't tested it in maths however.  Yo, you, leg, what's the hydrolateral of the isosceles particle of the square root of parsley?  Okay, maybe that's botany. 

†† It did once.  After it went away I eventually discovered I had ME.  This is not a story to cheer me up right now. 

††† That's SHADOWS, I, Robin, not SHADOWS VOLUME ONE.  AAAAAAAAUGH. 

‡ I'm so American.  

‡‡ Waaaaaaaaaah