Stedman Triples

 

It was Fustian’s extra practise for the slow and the stupid tonight.  You can see how jazzed I was to go.  I was going because I need the frelling time on a frelling rope, and the Fustian band is extremely good.*  But I’d had Computer Angel Raphael here for hours** and the Don’t Even Think About It Overlord Alarm System annual maintenance bloke*** here as well and all I wanted to do was stay home and wrestle with that wretched chapter.†  Also Pav was a trifle challenging because of all these fascinating strangers trooping through†† and one way or another I was TIRED.  It’s also been a beautiful day and I would have liked to spend a little more of it in the garden than it took to water the prima donnas and the large things in small pots as referred to yesterday.

But I went, feeling put upon, someone is holding a gun to my head and FORCING me to waste a good gardening evening ringing bells, right?  And the first thing that happened was I made rather a mess of ringing tenor to Grandsire Triples WHICH OUGHT TO BE EASY, tenor-behind is one of the early skills . . . except I never learnt it and don’t have it.  Also it’s a small ringing chamber, there were a dozen people in it and it’s summer.  By the end of the second touch we were all gasping.  Fustian’s Scary Man was there—every tower has at least one—and he doesn’t usually come to the Tuesdays, I think they’re too hard on his nerves.  And my brain was a wet dishrag:  we haven’t had any more rain, but the weather is the kind that if you run a knife through the air there will be heavy squishy thuds where air-chunks have just landed, even if you can’t see them.  When Darvell had asked me what I wanted to ring tonight, might as well take advantage of there being enough good ringers to drag me through an eight-bell method so I asked for Stedman Triples because I am a fool.  Then he told me to stand behind and watch Jabari while they rang a really complicated touch of Stedman so I could Learn Something.  I got lost about six blows in and . . . and . . . by the time he told me (beaming) that it was my turn I had no morale left.

But because Fate was having one of her silly-frellers evenings . . . I rang it probably the best I ever have.  No, definitely the best I ever have, because we were ringing proper touches, and I haven’t been ringing any touches††† for very long.  It’s a lot easier to ring with a band that good around you—and I had a minder—and those are nice cooperative bells.  AND I will undoubtedly screw it up the next time I ring it.  Even so.  It was also balm to the wounded ego after being a nincompoop at my voice lesson yesterday. . . .

* * *

* I’m on their email list so I’ll know if there are any special plans for Stupid Tuesday, including that it’s been cancelled, which happened to me once, which is when they put me on the mailing list.  But this means I also receive the thoughtful, detailed emails about their real practise . . . the one for their GOOD ringers . . . which I read with rapt, horrified fascination.

** I am buying a new printer.  I don’t want to buy a new printer, I can’t really afford a new printer since I need one that punches professional weight and if I’m going to do it at all I WANT WIRELESS.  But I am buying a new printer.  Meanwhile . . . I managed to DEMONSTRATE a Word fault that Raphael has never seen or heard of, which is almost worth it because the next time I catch him giving me the she’s-old-clueless-and-writes-FANTASY-for-a-living look I can say REMEMBER THE RANDOM ITALICS.  Word Nineteen or Forty Seven or whatever it is, the one after Vista, italicises things sometimes.  La la la la la la.  And, having done so, refuses to stop.  If you highlight and click the ital button . . . nothing happens.  The text jerks, but it stays italic.  Sometimes the ital goes away again.  If it feels like it.  La la la la la la revisited.

*** Yes.  The same triple-blasted chapter.  Gah arrrgh misery despair prostration and weeping, etc.

† I have mentioned before that I don’t want to be the only house that doesn’t have an alarm, even if I’m clearly the poor relation and unless you want to steal dahlias^ or dog food you’d be better off applying yourself to some other house.

^ One of the houses on the main street around the corner from me has gorgeous big stone planters by their front door which this summer are stuffed with frilly pink and white begonias.  Anyone who grows begonias will know their strange tendency toward suicidal flowers.  It’s worth keeping an eye on the area around your begonias for the fallen, because most of them are still in the flush of early youth and will float happily in a bowl of water indoors for days.  I had been gritting my teeth at the WASTAGE of my neighbours’ pink and white begonias . . . and finally began picking them up myself.  I do this with my own begonias and find myself gravitating toward buying the ones that are going to have suitable flowers.  Camellias are a bit liable to this behaviour as well, but begonias are far more profligate.  But these belonging to my neighbours are particularly splendid.  I should ask them what they are and buy some of my own.

†† Not naming her Mayhem, may I just say, hasn’t worked.  FRELLING FRELLING YOU LITTLE RATBAGGERY^.  As long as I’m letting her keep her reproductive bits she’s going to have to cope with being crated some of the time and since bull terriers ARE NOT PARTICULARLY CHILLED AND LAID BACK I also need a way to keep her from making the hellhounds crazy too.  Even Uncle Chaos doesn’t really want all the fur on his face lovingly nibbled off.  But she’s out as much as I can manage at the cottage^^, where it’s a little easier to maintain order.  The obvious drawback to this excellent plan is that she now thinks she OUGHT TO BE OUT and can stage some spectacular meltdowns when the crate door remains shut . . . and good luck to you if you have to lock her up WHEN SHE DOESN’T WANT TO BE.  The earth quakes on its axis and the burglar who was considering having a try for some dog food runs away.  I appreciate that from a hellterror eye view the hellhounds are out, why isn’t SHE?  I’m also just not going to not let her out to say hello to anyone who isn’t positively dog-phobic, although this tends to lead to bruises—mine—from a healthy desire to protect both my visitors and the reputation of bull terriers.  No, no—oof—she’s really very—OW—sweet.  Training?  Sure.  She will now sit while I take her harness off and scatter food in her crate—she sits a little rigidly and with great focus but that’s fine—WAITING FOR THE RELEASE WORD.  But there are, you know, limits.  Visitors are clearly beyond them.

^ This is possibly the updated equivalent of the old epithet ‘baggage’, as in you little (*&^%$£!!! baggage.

^^ Although this is not particularly conducive to the finishing of chapters.

††† Touches are when your conductor shouts out BOB or SINGLE and everybody’s line through the pattern changes, which means the bells’ routes gets jumbled up more