A Walk in the Dark
It’s official.* Summer’s over: last hurtle of the day today was in the dark. Granted I was a little late getting our trampling feet out there, but a month ago it was still daylight at 8 pm. I don’t like hurtling hellhounds after dark: their night vision is so much better than mine. In daylight my general vision is better—if the cat or the pheasant doesn’t move, I will probably see it first, and Gently Guide hellhounds’ attention in a different direction. If it does move, I’m diddled, and if it’s moving already, unfortunately, they have the edge: their eyes are built to pick up motion. But that’s still one out of three, and a lot of things don’t move.** After dark . . . apparently the world is full of scuttling rabbits, wombats, kinkajous, dik-diks, gremlins, and small trolls. And I don’t see any of them. It’s bad enough when the hellhounds just bolt in pursuit of some unseen quarry. Chaos occasionally feels that I would be more inclined to join in the fun (instead of all the screaming and yanking) if I were properly encouraged, which consists of his diving between my legs and then ramming his head and forequarters violently up. What a good thing I’m not a boy.
The reason we were out at eight o’clock is that I was forced into ringing handbells this evening. I hadn’t expected this. Colin’s been away, and I took advantage of the break to tell Niall very firmly that I was Crushed by Circumstances Beyond My Control*** and not to make any efforts, in Colin’s absence, toward pulling a third handbeller out his hat, the woodwork, holes in reality†, etc. And we always book our evenings ahead††. So this morning I straggled out of bed††† and thought, well, at least I’ve got a clear day: no handbells tonight. I can get the proof corrections for CHALICE in a whole day early.‡
So the hellhounds and I went on our first hurtle, came down to the mews, I turned my computer on for the first time today and . . . found emails from Colin and Niall chirpily assuming we were mustering at the cottage this evening for handbells. Oh . . . dranglefab. But it’s a good thing I yielded to pressure: we have that wedding next week‡‡ and Colin and I were both ringing like handbells were something we had done one summer when we were eighteen, with the bodysurfing, cheese rolling, canoe jousting, and curling, and we remember how to do the other stuff better.‡‡‡ So we’ll be ringing next Thursday too. § By which time I’ll have SPINDLE’S END nearly proofed and I’ll have PEGASUS . . . uh. . . .
* * *
* I don’t care about astronomy and equinoxes! And in the Chinese five-element system this is the fifth season anyway!^ I may have said all this last year because I always feel fifth-seasony around now. The fifth season between summer and autumn makes sense to me. I remember first finding out about the fifth season from a five-elements acupuncturist, and feeling yessssssss.^^
^ Except when you cut it up and make it into four transitions. I’m sure there’s a way to make this even more complicated.
^^ I don’t like the transitions nearly as much. Now is when the year changes gear, for me.
** And hellhounds, like people, don’t think to look up. And up to a hellhound is a lot lower than it is to me. They’ve missed a lot of feline melodrama on walls and cars and window sills by failing to look up.
*** Well, the frelling muse is obviously out of my control. And publishers and publishers’ schedules are clearly possessed by demons. From the wrong division of hell. I don’t even have any friends over there I can ring up and ask a favour.
† Since handbell ringing clearly emerged from a hole in reality to begin with
†† Because we all suffer Middle Aged Brain
††† Late, of course, having been reading proofs till ggglmph.
‡ Six Corrections You Might Feel Are Worth Making^ in Your Hardback Edition:
Page 53, first line: I have begun to fear that perhaps I do hear the land any more either.
Insert “not” after “do” ^^
Page 79, first paragraph: She hadn’t stopped him leaving for a fear a third bee would sacrifice herself to drive the interloper away.
Delete “a” before “fear”
Page 111, about halfway down: Lighting is young and strong and thoughtless, but it could also wish to visit the site of some particular victory of one of its kind…
Change “lighting” to “lightning”^^^
Page 205, last new para, demesnes’ rather than demesne’s: “It’s another of the grisly lingering remnants of our demesnes’ early history,”
Page 219, middle: Despairingly she thought, Are his people are turning to the Master at last, now that it is too late?
Delete “are” after “people”
Page 262, near the top: Five of them had, or were in the process of, removing their badges and signs of office, and laying them at the foot of the stairs.
This is, of course, bad grammar, although you know what it means. You can add ‘removed’: ‘had removed, or were in the process of removing,’ and take out the comma after ‘of’. Or you can just take the comma out, which is still bad grammar, but easier.
^ Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
^^ This one is especially ARRRRRRRRGHworthy. [Sound of author considering falling on her sword. If I fell on my sword, I wouldn’t have to kill myself finishing PEGASUS. Hmmmmmm.]
^^^ I have this disagreeable vision of a lighting shop selling the kind of thing that the previous owner of Third House went in for.
‡‡ Colin is having a really good time geeing us up about what we should wear. I’m a girl. I don’t have to wear a boiled shirt. And you can’t scare me about a black velvet skirt: I have a black velvet skirt. And an assortment of pink All Stars to go with it.
‡‡‡ Niall rang perfectly. Niall always handbells perfectly. It’s in his contract. Oh, he goes wrong occasionally just to make us feel better, but his heart isn’t in it.
§ And, speaking of ringing, ajlr sent me this: …http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8247631.stm
I like the quote about cricket: I’ve just about heard of Lord’s, but W G who? I have heard of Wolsey. I think the idea that these are the bells that, if Henry had been coursing stag in the area, he’d have heard, is waaay cool. But I wish the video/audio clip was something other than rounds: I also hope that the bells sound better in person. Do you want the original fifteenth-century bells^ or do you want the slightly less original bells in tune? The kind of people who complain about bell ringing I don’t think are going to go all mushy over the fact that the bells are a few centuries old.
Pity Suffolk isn’t closer. Yes, I’d like to ring Stedman on the oldest change-ringing bells in the world.
^ Isn’t calling the fifteenth century ‘medieval’ pushing it?
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