The Plot Thickens
It is extraordinarily cold out there–bah–I hung around and hung around after service ring* instead of taking hellhounds out promptly after the ritual post-ring cup of tea and putter/potter** and eventually decided it wasn’t going to get any warmer–and golly didn’t we have what I believe is euphemistically known as an invigorating walk. I’d tried to plan a walk that gave us optimum sunlight with optimum windbreak, which is tricky. At least the sloughs are mostly frozen over . . . well, frozen over for hellhound weight anyway*** . . . so I didn’t have to think about the footing so much. At one point however we had to emerge into the open and just about had all our fur torn off, and the breath the wind is cramming back down your throat again is so cold your lungs try to run away, which creates a kind of weird negative-burning sensation in your chest.
We finally got back to the faithful Wolfgang and for once in their rackety little lives hellhounds were quite willing to jump in a wind-proof car.† I turned around carefully since the slough we park in is definitely not up to Wolfgang’s weight, pulled around the corner and . . . were confronted by about fifteen sheep in the middle of the road. Oh. Life in the country: critters. So we turned around again and went off in search of the nearest farmer. As we pulled into Nearest Farmer’s driveway a car pulled up behind me, and a window rolled down. Are you going to tell him about the sheep? said the woman in the car. Yes, I said. Oh good, she said, and drove away.
I love farmers. He’d seen me coming and already had his wellies on and was walking through the door. He didn’t know what I wanted, but he could guess that it would involve wellies. And I won’t count as a stranger–with my extremely conspicuous accent and even more conspicuous hellhounds everybody knows me††† and this, my prime walking territory, is also Jenny’s extended family’s farmland. So chances are I’d be reporting something seen while dashing over the countryside. I felt very clever to be able to add that these were black-faced when the ones in his immediate fields are white-faced. Foreign Townie Can Differentiate Basic Sheep Types: Details on Page Seven. Oh, they’ll be [Jenny's sister's], he said. I’ll go have a look, and strode off for his Land Rover. We went the long way home.
Meanwhile . . . I had been rather relieved to see, as I sprinted past on my way to the tower this morning, that the black plastic garbage bag over the geranium was still there. It was still there when I got back too.
But by the time hellhounds and I went out it was gone. And there’s no wind to speak of my end of town: it’s coming from the wrong direction. Oh *&^%^%$$£”}]@#!!!!!! I said . . . and left the cardboard box where it was, partly because it was still hovering around freezing and partly because if this is a protest about the degeneracy and abasement of the neighbourhood‡ then presumably if I don’t take the hint the cardboard box (with accompanying airbags) will be removed also–which would be a clue. I’ll worry about a clue to what later. . . . But which will also be a ratliver kebab, because both cardboard box and especially the airbags will be frellers to replace. I spent some time thinking about this while we were walking: in the first place, this means it was done midmorning in broad daylight, including in full view of a variety of neighbours, did they happen to be looking out their windows at the correct moment. In the second place, just general all-encompassing WTF? And what do I do now? Even black plastic garbage bags are going to become expensive if I’m replacing them every day.
I’d decided that the next thing to try, because this is still about saving the geranium or at least the rose, which is, you may recall, one of the ‘needs coddling to give of its best’ ones which means ‘don’t do it! Don’t buy this rose! Aaaaaaaugh!’ but which has been galloping along rather well the last four years and I’m loath to lose her now if I can help it, was to tie on one of those green plastic collapsible garden-rubbish bags over the cardboard box in place of the garbage bags. Garden-rubbish bags have handles. So when I got back to the cottage I went out into the garden to decide which one of my tip bags I would risk, since it might, of course, disappear to wherever the garbage bags are going.
I’ve told you before that the tiny garden at the cottage is surrounded by brick-and-flint walls that probably contain more surface area than the garden they embrace. On three sides there are ten-foot walls. On the fourth side is the house, plus a small greenhouse. There’s no way in except through the house or the greenhouse–which is also kept locked. Or over the wall.
As I stepped outdoors my eye was immediately caught by a black plastic garbage bag lying as if exhausted in the hellhounds’ courtyard. I looked at it in wildest surmise, and went over and picked it up. Yes, it is the black plastic garbage bag that had been pulled down over the geranium: I could tell this without a doubt, because of the staple holes.
* * *
* Speaking of bah. I have no brain today. Arrrrrgh. It’s always really depressing when brainlessness occurs when you’re ringing service–as I keep banging^ on about, service ringing is what we’re for: service ringing is how we earn the privilege to ring–and particularly infuriating today because I rang Grandsire Triples inside for the first time at Friday practise. Triples being all eight bells–seven ‘working’ and the tenor behind. The only methods I can ring ‘inside’ are all doubles and minor–five or six working bells. I’ve rung bob triples a few times, which is the next step of the sequence Edward takes his learners through, and Grandsire triples would be the next logical progression . . . but the truth is we can’t muster seven steady ringers on practise nights all that often, for a benighted eighth to bounce off of. And I loooong to ring Grandsire Triples because my home tower is a Grandsire Triples tower–it’s the method we ring the most (when we have the ringers). It’s perfectly true that I’m always moving the goalposts on myself so that I never quite arrive at Real Ringer status, but being able to ring Grandsire Triples inside would be a hard one to nullify.^^
And I did it pretty well too–the Grandsire Triples. Niall was in charge of the practise in Edward’s absence^^^ and he said casually to me, Want to have a go at Grandsire Triples inside? Yes, I said . . . and then fled into a corner with my method book, stuck my fingers in my ears, and stared frantically at the line. I was expecting Niall to tell me I already knew it because I’d rung it on handbells but it will take way too much arcane bell language to explain why this is Niall having his little joke. And–yes, a good ringing student will have a method she wants a chance to ring memorised before she goes to a practise. I am not a good ringing student. I am also not the only one who flees into corners carrying a method book when something someone ought already to know gets called.
Now Grandsire Triples when you can ring Grandsire Doubles^^^^, like bob triples when you can ring bob doubles and bob minor, is not heroically intrepid and prodigious–just sort of ordinarily intrepid and prodigious. Methods stay more or less themselves as they have extra bells bolted on the back end, and extra twiddles of ‘work’ to take advantage of having extra bells, so there are great stretches that will be familiar . . . which is its own hazard and downfall, of course, because the unfamiliar bits are stretched like piano wire across your path. I sometimes think merely memorising the extra bits of actual work (which are the deviations from going directly out to the back and down to the front again, seen in your method book as straight lines: ‘work’ presents as wiggly bits in the line) are the easy part. Trying to adjust to an eight-bell speed and rhythm when you’re speed and rhythm challenged anyway is enough. And you’re supposed to remember MORE STUFF TOO?
. . . And then nobody said anything. I know this means that I sounded like I knew what I was doing, which is a good thing. But I’m six years old and just got 100% on my spelling test and I want someone to say something. Feh.
^ or clanging
^^ Nah. Easy. It’s not being able to ring something–I’m beginning to ring touches of Stedman, which is another biiiiig Real Ringer milestone–it’s being able to ring it reliably. I can’t ring anything reliably. In another six months or a year or something Grandsire Triples–like Stedman–will have become another method I ring erratically. Sigh.
^^^ Edward, in a manner that would have done the Klutzim Klub proud, had carved his finger instead of the roast beast. Both his wife and his mother took unholy glee in hissing And it wasssn’t the firssst time and then going off in manic giggles. I guess it’s not too serious.
^^^^ Usually. Not this morning. Sigh.
** Which now includes watering the jungle and wishing I still had a sitting-room
*** Sigh. Also squish.
† It’s not that they won’t. It’s that they make it very clear that Jumping in Cars is Not a Fun Thing. This makes me slightly crazy since Wolfgang is their friend. They usually get in the car to go somewhere for a lovely country walk. When we go out in the morning they should be trying to pick the lock with their teeth in their eagerness to be off on adventures new.
††† You know how most people are hard to describe? Tallish, thinnish, short mousy hair, glasses . . . has an American accent and one fawn and one almost-black hellhound. –Oh yes, I know her.
‡ In which case I have a few other candidates to suggest
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