Bad Photos
Okay. Baaaad photos. But I decided in aggregate they become funny, and you can all use a laugh, right?
I KEEP TELLING YOU THERE ARE NO CATS IN THE SHRUBBERY.
This Woman Is Wondering If Her Husband and Her Camera Are About to Slip into an Alternate Dimension and Never Be Seen Again. (And Hellhounds Are Not Convinced About the Lack of Cats.)
If you look closely (well, not too closely) you may observe some strange dark smudges on my left thigh. Those are . . . bruises. I don’t actually look at my thighs much (taking baths, late at night, who’s awake? Getting dressed in the morning, who’s awake?) and it came as rather a shock to discover that I have this entire series of small round bruises on my leg. I spent most of my first day in shorts wondering what piece of furniture was responsible, and if I might be able to move it to somewhere I won’t be so inclined to impale myself on it. It finally occurred to me. It’s not a piece of furniture, unless you consider hellhounds furniture. It’s Chaos. He comes boiling out of the front door for a walk–any door, any walk–and my little joke is that he emerges in Must Bite Something mode. Well, he’s not allowed to bite Darkness, and who’s left? He comes and gnaws on my arm and makes ridiculous noises when we’re all sitting down comfortably indoors, why shouldn’t he gnaw on my leg and make ridiculous noises when he’s expressing his delight in the prospect of ambulatory entertainment? It never occurred to me he was leaving marks.
Oh, and yes, those are roses on my socks.
This is how the majority of ringing photos look. With your hands in front of your face (and some fairly serious distemper on the inadequately maintained ancient tower wall behind you). At least the rope is not flying out in some abstruse hieroglyph, thus demonstrating either that I am a ninth-level magician of dangerous and portentous skills, or that my bell handling skills are regrettably sucky.
Okay, this is truly unheard of. I seem to be smiling. Bell ringing is SERIOUS! You do not SMILE! Smiling at a competition results in instant disqualification for the entire band! –I believe this was when Colin, who was on the rope to my right, turned around and faced the wall, in fear that Anthea might let the camera tremble a little and he might be in the shot. Hey, dumbface! There’s a crop function!*
I’m looking at the floor, so I’m probably leading. Looking frantically sideways one way or the other is the sign of a person desperately looking for the next bell she should be following (have I mentioned recently that you have about a third of a second to pull your rope in the right place?). This is also a good example of the ‘you must be joking’ aspect of bell ringing. No sane grown up would take up something that requires this posture three times every two seconds ( . . . approximately. The other three times is the backstroke, as in the previous photo. Handstroke is when you have hold of the fuzzy striped thing).
My life. Sigh. Okay, we need some rose photos now.
* * *
* Yes, a just possibly marginally recognisable foot and an elbow were in the original photo before I cropped it out. And I’ll hear about it that I called Colin dumbface. He keeps an eye on the blog for subversive remarks. Since he’s already making me ring six singles a minute in Stedman I’m not sure what he’ll think of to punish me, but he’ll manage.
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