Yet Another Announcement*

 

Even I admit this pales in comparison to getting SHADOWS sent in and the decision on who is to be my bull terrier puppy** but it’s still big news to me:   

I’M AN OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE FORZA ABBEY TOWER RINGERS.  YESSSSSSSSSS. 

Last Wednesday week** at practise, and entirely out of nowhere, I had two different people say to me, perhaps not quite in these words, you’re here all the time, why don’t you frelling JOIN?  The first one, Landon, hadn’t realised I’d quit New Arcadia—well I’m not ringing at the abbey Sunday mornings so I might very well be ringing at New Arcadia, except that I’m not.  And I said, I’d love to join, but I’m not really abbey material, and he said on the contrary, you keep showing up, we need ringers, and as you know perfectly well you’re not the only sub-Doohickey Dingdong Frabjous Super-Maximus ringer in the band.  Um, I said.† 

            But only a few minutes later Pardulfo got up on the big tenor box†† to exhort us to vote in the abbey council elections, because bell ringers are under-represented in abbey council deliberations.  All you regular visitors! he said.  You should join.  And then he looked straight at me, and said, You!  You should join!

            Eeep, I said.  Certainly.  Happy to.  Er—how?

            I’ll email you the paperwork, he said.

            And then he didn’t.

            A week went by.  I sighed a lot.  Last Wednesday practise I sidled up to Pardulfo and said, um, you were going to send me the paperwork about joining the band—?

            He looked stricken, and rushed off to consult the tower captain who—I thought, watching, while standing in the middle of that FRELLING GIGANTIC BALLROOM FLOOR and feeling about two inches tall—looked at me and the expression that crossed his face might politely be described as nonplussed. 

            Oh well, I thought.

            He did send me the paperwork the next morning.  But it was all about getting put on the abbey rolls††† and voting in the elections and nothing about being accepted as a tower ringer.  Oh well, I thought again, and, elections being imminent, printed everything out, filled in the forms and posted them that afternoon.  Brooded for a bit, and then emailed my putative future tower captain back, saying that I’d done as instructed, but my real goal was to join the tower, and there must be some further document involved.

            He didn’t answer.

            OH WELL.

            . . . And then over the weekend I discovered the self-addressed stamped envelope you’re supposed to include to receive the postal voting form still on my desk at the cottage.  ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH.  Since I’m trying to hard to be a good doobie here, which does NOT come easily, I decided I’d go in today‡ and vote in person.‡‡  Shining with prospective virtue, I turned my computer on this morning . . . and there was an email from the abbey tower captain, welcoming me as a member of the band, and wishing me many happy years ringing with them. 

             So I also went to evensong after voting and stuffed a little money in the ‘retiring collection’‡‡‡ as a thank you. §

             I HAVE A HOME TOWER AGAIN. §§ 

* * *

* These things go in threes, right? 

** http://www.puppytext.com/view25364MAZRGW  With thanks to Peter for finding puppytext.com in a silly-item-round-up in the GUARDIAN of all places. 

*** So two Wednesdays ago 

† They rang Cambridge surprise major on Sunday, and I went to stand by the treble and watch.  The treble does something called treble bobbing for—well, all the surprise methods I know about, it wouldn’t, ahem, surprise me if there were exceptions—and while I can treble to surprise minor (six bells) trebling to major (eight bells) requires that you count higher and dodge more times and seven, as you’re counting your place in the row rhythmically to yourself, has two syllables.  One-two-three-four-five-six-SVN-eight.  I’ve never trebled to surprise major but anywhere but the frelling abbey I might, at this point, have a reasonable shot at it.^  But ring Cambridge major inside, when I can barely limp through a plain course of minor on a very good day?  Forget it.

            Wild Robert, on the three, said, Never mind the treble.  Come stand by me.  

^ Maybe I’ll ask to try it some time at Fustian, if all continues to go well there.    

†† Big tenor bells tend to have big tenor boxes for the ringer to stand on.  He, or she, is less likely to get tangled up in the 1,000,000,000 miles of rope to go around a big tenor wheel, when the ringer is above floor level.  The abbey’s tenor is humungous, so the box is correspondingly humungous.  

†††  I noticed they want all your details which no doubt means I’m going to be harangued for donations for the rest of my life.  But it takes oceans of money to keep something the size of the abbey not merely open for business, but the walls vertical and the roof nailed on—and yes I think it should be kept alive and running so, fine, whatever. 

‡ And possibly stop at the knitting store for a pair of 7 mm needles.  I used to reject automatically all patterns calling for any needle smaller than 4 mm because I’m still too twitchy a knitter to deal with anything that finger-tanglingly teeny.  But since I have yet to get gauge on anything smaller than one or two or even three needle sizes larger than suggested my attitude has changed.  It is of course possible that now that I’ve FINALLY GOT SHADOWS TURNED IN^ my knitting will LOOSEN UP A LITTLE.^^  

^ Even if I’m still working on it   

^^ Although not, please fate, in the middle of anything I’m knitting right now.  

‡‡ And it’s a good thing I did, since they had no record of me or any of those painstakingly filled-in forms.  By which we learn that however lofty the abbey spiritual attainments, bureaucracy rules there too in its usual bumbling fashion, down here at grub level. 

‡‡‡ Ah, the British.  In America, you go to church, some body passes a plate while you’re still trapped in a pew, and glares at you.  All right, I have attended C of E services where they pass a plate—or, more often, a little bag, the better to disguise how much or how little you’re putting in it—but in this case there was a discreet tray at a little distance from the exit from the little enclosed bit where the service was held into the vaster territory of the abbey generally and it would have been easy to miss it.  

§ The bell tower, after all, is part of the fabric of this vast churchy building that needs to be kept upright and working, and our membership dues are pathetic and, furthermore, some organising body—and I am embarrassingly uncertain whether it’s the C of E admin or the central bell council admin—will pay it for you if you don’t jump in the breach and wave money.  

§§ I have really hated being ‘unattached’ as it’s called.  Makes me feel utterly lost and alone in a hostile universe^.  Bellringing is a team activity.  You need to belong somewhere, even if you ring elsewhere too. 

^ Just like the SWD, although I don’t tell sad stories of the death of kings with my tail much.+ 

+ Note that Kes does not share my allergy to Shakespeare.