WHAT??

 

Yes.  We got it.  WE GOT THE QUARTER.  I have no idea how.  I knew we weren't going to.  

            In the first place . . . I had been so proud of myself.  The ME was being a ratbag and I was determined to take my best shot at the quarter today anyway, so I went to bed EARLY last night.  Having conveniently forgotten that when the ME is bad . . . so, usually, is the insomnia. 

            I couldn't sleep.  Nothing to do with going to bed early;  I was tired enough, and when my hormones aren't dorking me around I fall asleep beautifully.  Couldn't sleep.  Had a few gruesome half-dreams for a few hours there and then woke up again too early with that slap-in-the-face-with-a-cold-wet-fish jolt that goes with this scenario.  GAAAAAAH.  Had two service rings this morning and I was all, Is this a bell rope which I see before me, The sally toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.  (I know.  I make this joke about twice a year.  Live with it.)  The barbershop-pole striping of the average sally is not a good thing early on a Sunday morning when you've had no sleep;  the Doppler effect—if it's Doppler I'm thinking of—as the sallies bob up and down as the bells ring is as potent as an hallucinogen.*  And of course the bells—and therefore the sallies—at Old Eden, where we had the second service, are always possessed by demons.  Adding to the fun.

            Then I crept home and hurtled hellhounds in a faltering, feeble sort of way and came down to the mews to hide in Balsinland for a while.**  Peter was in the garden pruning roses*** and I was being swallowed by a roc and there was a knock on the door . . . Peter having forgotten to tell me we were having people for tea.†  Try to get your sleep-deprived, roc-distracted, prospectively bell-terrified brain around an unexpected concept like visitors.

             I got out my knitting.††  Of course.†††  Georgiana knits‡ and she went home and sent me a couple of links, one to a fabulous hat, http://vivianeschwarz.blogspot.com/2011/02/oh-brave-new-world-that-has-such-fish.html and another with the instructions-for-the-eternal-ages:  scroll down to the knitted squid.  http://thefleecestation.wordpress.com/   OH MY DRANGLEFABBERS.  THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO YARNBOMBED PICCADILLY CIRCUS. ‡‡ 

              But—alas—too soon I had to lay down my knitting needles and take up a bell rope.  We were not going to get this quarter.  We weren't.  I was always going to be fried out of my little mind from the fact that it was a service ring—it was a service ring that if we got the freller was going to be dedicated to someone's retirement—and that was before the ME slugged me with a sledgehammer and didn't let me have any sleep the night before the event.  Penelope has recently taken on a second job and is out on her feet most of the time.  And Roger hasn't called a quarter in fifteen years.

              Eeep.  No chance.  Might as well relax.‡‡‡

              Three leads in Dorothy came adrift and we had to start over.  Eeeeeep.  But then we settled in and . . . it was not, in fact, too bad.  The treble did have to keep order once or twice§, but not for long enough for said treble to panic.§§  We even mostly sounded pretty good. 

              AND WE GOT IT.  YAAAAAAAY.§§§

              Now I have to start worrying about Friday's.  I have to ring inside on Friday.# 

* * *

* There's a marketing opportunity here.  Which I'm not going to touch.  Pity though.  We need money for our bell restoration.  

** Which is a really bad place to hide right now.  The bad guys are winning. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.^

^ Any of you who follow Jodi on Twitter will know that she takes reprehensible glee in torturing her characters extensively.  Oh the younger generation.  I haven't got the stamina. 

*** He has a surprising number of roses.  Ahem.

† Not in the Flanders and Swann sense.  http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1653493/Flanders-And-Swann-The-Reluctant-Cannibal-Lyrics  Why can't Keats and Browning get stuck in my head on an endless loop?  Nooooo.  It's Flanders and Swann or Beyond the Fringe^ or Monty Python^^.  Or Buffy, of course.^^^

^Then there's running at the coal face with your 'ead—one of the worst methods, known as the Bad Method of the Getting out of Coal.

^^ THIS IS AN EX PARROT.

^^^ You named your stake?  Remind me to get you a stuffed animal.

†† I finished another square.  And I managed to cast off in spite of pretending I had an end of a conversation to hold up.  Although I really have to learn to do it with the needles, not my fingers. 

††† Why did it take me so LONG?^  It is the best fidget.  And when you're preoccupied with dread of the immediate future and are suddenly expected to make conversation—blah blah blah blah tea? blah blah blah—it is a life saver.  You can talk about your knitting.  A certain amount of humour was expressed at the completeness of my equipage.  It's not just a pair of needles and a ball of yarn, is it?  It's already a stash, if a modest one, a needle case^^, a dedicated, made-for-purpose knitting bag with a hole for the yarn, and a Mobile Knitting Unit, even if it is an evening bag.  And I've been knitting—what?  A fortnight? 

^ Stop purring, you:  Jodi and blondviolinist and Fiona and the rest of you. 

^^ I managed not to flash my imported rose needles today.  We'll need something to talk about next time. 

‡ She's one of these tediously multi-skilled people.  She doesn't ring bells though. 

‡‡ OH DRANGLEFABBERS I AM GOING TO BE SO DANGEROUS AS SOON AS I LEARN TO PURL.  AND READ A PATTERN.   

‡‡‡ Relax? 

§ Where You Pass the Treble is one of the most crucial signposts in learning—and ringing—most methods.  Therefore if one of the inside ringers comes unstuck everybody frantically checks where the treble is.  If the treble is in the right place, chances are things will settle down again and you'll keep going.   

§§ It's all about rhythm.  Which I haven't got.  Much. 

§§§ As Penelope said, I have just proved I can stand on my feet for forty five minutes and pull on a bell rope.  Yes.  What really interests me . . . you remember I said yesterday that it's about two years since I stopped ringing tower quarters, which means that tower ringing is two more years more familiar.  I am so not in good shape today.  But those extra two years have given me enough autopilot to let me keep my line and my count—even if it was only the treble—when my brain had gone squidge, which it had, rather.  

# I'm not growing my hair out again, I keep forgetting to get it cut:  there is a crucial difference.  But I decided today that it has to stay long enough to tie back for ringing quarters.  Since of course I'm going to be doing more of them now.  Starting Friday.

            EEEEEEP.