I Have the Nicest Mods in the Universe*
I overslept this morning.** Hellhounds and I got back*** to the cottage after our morning [sic] hurtle and found: 
It’s from my mods. Congratulating me on getting the frelling† corrections on PEGASUS done on time.††
THANK YOU. YOU ARE WONDERFUL HUMAN BEINGS.†††
I was hoping to save some of the wrapping paper which you will note has roses on it, but it’s so damn fragile I’m hoping it’s biodegradable to comfort me for failing. And while I love the new standard cut-flower delivery thing where they come with their stems in actual water . . . there is the little matter of removing the bulge of plastic wrapping that contains the water . . . remember I said about fragile? There was language. As well as water all over the floor.
But hey. There are flowers. Beauuuuuutiful flowers. Beam. Awwwwwww.
I may have to post another photo tomorrow after I, you know, arrange them. It’s been a ridiculously busy day. I have no idea what I’ve been doing.‡ I was going to spend all day on the sofa. Pardon me, what happened? I got about twenty minutes on the sofa. Hellhounds couldn’t believe it when I turfed them off again after less than half an hour.
And I was still almost late for bell practise tonight. Niall after a mere fortnight as Ringing Master is rapidly morphing into a major demonic fiend. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But I don’t recall Machiavelli mentioning the horns and the spinal plates. I’m sure I can see the glitter of incipient green and purple scales on Niall’s forehead and his teeth are definitely growing. There were only six of us plus two beginners so we were ringing pretty much all the time, but because I am also Niall’s partner in handbell crime he picks on me.‡‡ You, do thus and such, he says. —Regretfully repressed rude gestures.‡‡‡
Including making me ring Kent. I haven’t rung Kent in at least a couple of months. Leo is also learning Kent, but he’s rung it more recently; last time we had a good enough band I rang Stedman. I grabbed the treble and held on, which worked the first time through, while Leo got his practise in . . . although I hadn’t actually rung the complex treble on a treble-bob method in probably two months either, so it was a little more exciting than was strictly desirable. I then slunk off to rememorize the inside line frantically in case Niall remembered me later, except I kept getting dragged out of my corner to ring rounds with beginners. Somebody else can do it! I’m busy! You, said Niall. Ring the four. Fiend.
But I got through Kent. It was, as I have a habit of saying about touches I’ve been ringing in, not a thing of beauty, but we got to the end. I was trying not to congratulate myself audibly when Richard started giving me one of his little frelling essays on ringing—I like Richard’s essays, and I particularly like the way he presents them in this calm, reasonable tone of voice as if you have half a clue what he’s talking about—but this one began with the shocking declaration that the line for Kent was easy to learn, it was the practicalities of ringing it accurately that are the problem, and I lost focus a trifle. Easy to learn. There speaks someone who has been ringing for sixty years.
I’m not going to get my day on the sofa tomorrow either. I have a frelling wedding to ring at Ditherington. Never mind. I will come home to flowers.§
* * *
* No, I haven’t warned them to brace themselves for a deeply embarrassing public expression of appreciation. What would be the fun in that?
** Don’t even ask.
*** And it’s been a beautiful day. April in February, as I said on Twitter earlier. Nearly shirtsleeve weather and sunny.^ Wha’? Huh? Hellhounds and I couldn’t cope. We tottered around feeling unstrung and looking nervously in the shadows. Sunlight produces such dramatic shadows. And shivering keeps you awake.
^ Mud to the ankles though. Whew. Some connection with familiar reality.
† The card does not say ‘frelling’. I’m not sure if this is restraint on the mods’ part or an understandable desire not to complicate matters. That’s f, r, e, l, l . . . oh, never mind. I know from experience florists’ clerks can be rather creative even when you spell things out really carefully.
†† They apparently arrived in English, too, which is a bonus. I wasn’t at all sure. By the time I hit the ‘send’ button yesterday evening the stuff on the screen was starting to swim around and form strange new clusters, racemes and inflorescences hitherto unknown to science, botany, or human visual range. But I got a note from my editor’s assistant today saying that she was working her way through them and while you can’t get bloodstains on email it didn’t break off in the middle of a word or anything.
††† There are moments when this frelling blog is worth it.
‡ Oversleeping. And I had another cup of tea with Oisin. Who is going all mean and fierce and telling me he’s expecting something musical out of me next week. Just because I got my novel turned in! What a big bully!^ He had even finally got me my own copy of the Capriol Suite^^. Mind you there is no reason I couldn’t go on playing off the photocopies he’d made for me^^^. I also may have led him on a little because I said that some of my blog people had suggested I set the lullaby at the beginning of PEGASUS and he replied kindly and sympathetically that while he will look forward to it, the thought of what I might consider a suitable lullaby for a three-armed witch and a feminist dragon gives him pause. Ha ha ha ha very frelling funny ha ha. You be nice or I’ll write it for organ.
^ Blondel will probably whap me around on Tuesday too
^^ Which has been OS at the publisher forever. Sheet music publishers make book publishers look like unfallen archangels and shiny harp-plucking seraphim.
^^^And because I am a lazy slut I will undoubtedly continue to play off the photocopies for some time because they’ve got all my painfully worked out fingering on them, and the large red slashes that mean pay attention to this bit, you idiot, and I’m going to resist going to the extra effort to move it all over. Aside from the fact that I am intimidated by all those glossy new clean pages with, you know, covers on either end.
‡‡ I am surrounded by musical male bullies.^ Where did I go wrong?
^ Of course this includes the hellhounds. It does not include Peter, however, who is slightly prouder of being unmusical than the facts support. But it will do for keeping him off this list.
‡‡‡Vicky would not approve of rude gestures. Our tower is even cleaner than this blog. Sigh.
§ More beaming. More awwwwwww.
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