Some days
Some days you get to the end of them and you’re still trying to decide if they’ve been a good day or a bad day. Today, for example.
Mondays usually get off to a bad start by oversleeping. This is because I usually forget about the flowers till it’s already later than I meant it to be and I’m closing down the laptop and about to start thrusting hellhounds into their harnesses* so we can all go back to the cottage and go to sleep. And then there’s this bucket of cut flowers arrrrgh. I’ve told you I go round the florist’s after Sunday service ring and drop rather too much cash and she usually gives me a bunch or two of whatever is too far gone for her to sell, but still has bits worth salvaging. I do a posy or two for the cottage and bring the rest of it down to the mews, put it in a bucket and . . . forget about it till I’m three-quarters crashed out and want to go to bed.** Peter tells me on nearly a weekly basis that he’d be happy to do them—but I like stuffing flowers in vases. I just like doing it about two hours earlier than I usually wind up doing it.
So today got off to . . . a late start.*** But it’s a holiday Monday, so the phone didn’t ring while I still had a pillow over my head. But it’s a holiday Monday, so there’s no post. I love the internet, but I still love large flashy paper catalogues and the occasional letter involving stationery and stamps.† But it’s a holiday Monday, so main street ISN’T jammed frelling solid with delivery lorries while Wolfgang is trying to take hellhounds and me out of town. But it’s a holiday Monday, so there are incredible numbers of trippers out there where we’re trying to hurtle, mooching over the landscape and going ‘ooooh’. ††
It’s holiday Monday, so Computer Men aren’t coming till tomorrow and MY EMAIL IS POSSESSED BY THE SPIRIT OF TSATHOGGUA†††. Although Blogmom has been expostulating with the spam-filter side of it, which may (she whispers) be working.‡ But since it’s holiday Monday, I don’t have to wait in for Computer Men‡‡ and then fidget around the house trying to think of things to do that don’t involve computers while they wield their vorpal blades and sonic screwdrivers and so on.‡‡‡
And it’s holiday Monday, so we probably won’t have tower practise tonight . . . which is just as well, I need to work . . . no! Wrong! Practise at South Desuetude! Niall will pick me up! Yaay! I don’t need to work that badly!§
And then the wrong car pulls up in front of me, as I’m standing at the end of the driveway at the mews. It’s Vicky’s car . . . uh oh. And when we get there, Niall and Vicky and me, Isolde climbs out of the car that pulled in just ahead of us . . . I’m starting to have a very bad feeling . . . South Desuetude has eight bells. And it’s beginning to look like we’re going to have not merely eight ringers, but eight good ringers. I mean, no, seven good ringers and me.§§ Did I tell you about mashing Grandsire Triples like a boiled potato at home tower practise on Friday? Siiiigh. New Arcadia is a Grandsire band, and we have eight bells; I have got to crack Grandsire Triples. At present the cracking is going in quite the opposite direction. Colin’s Monday practises are usually on six—it helps that Little Warbling only has six bells, but we were at South Desuetude tonight and we had all these ringers.§§§
So first I hacked my way through a plain course of Grandsire Triples#, and even I should be able to manage a plain course. And then we rang Cambridge—my Cambridge, and on six which ought to be the number and the rhythm I’m used to—and I MADE A TOTAL FLAMING RAT’S ASS BALDERDASH OUT OF IT. Great frelling gods. At that point I was only prevented from falling on my sword by Colin’s immediate command for Stedman Triples! Stedman! Triples! Aaaaaaugh! So then I made a mess of that, although I had some help from Gordon.
It was now clearly a bad day.
Colin, dauntless, clawed his troops back together again and demanded a replay of Stedman Triples.
We did it this time. We even did it not too badly.## Okay, maybe it isn’t such a bad day.
And then Niall—that shoggoth! That Cthulhian star-spawn!—suggested bob major! Major! Major is with ALL EIGHT BELLS IN THE PATTERN. Are you following me? Triples has the tenor-behind, so it’s only seven working bells. As you’re counting your place, you only have to count to seven. You’d be amazed how many more bells seven is than six. And eight bells? Forget it. For-frelling-get it. It’s not just the counting, of course, it’s all the wiggly bits, that are what makes one method different from another. Why is Niall still alive? I would be happy to loan him my sword for falling-on purposes.
I’ve never rung major! I screamed.
Yes you have, chorused Vicky and Niall.
—Aside. I have not. This is not something I would not remember. Vicky is doing the old encouraging trick. You tell them they have, and they believe you and they do it. This may work with the young, the talented, and the brave. It does not work with the elderly, the learners by grind, and the terrified. Niall, however, is having his little joke. I’ve rung bob major in hand. I’ve rung it badly, but it’s true, I’ve rung it. GAAAAH.
So we rang bob major. The funny thing is, I got through it.###
So maybe it’s a good day after all.~
* * *
* Long term readers may remember^ that my silly idea of teaching the hellhounds the Spanish walk so we could all high-step down main street together and frighten the locals foundered on my inability to teach Chaos anything. Remind me to tell you about my Great Chaotic Revelation. Almost makes me start thinking about the Spanish walk again. . . .
** No. Wrong. I never want to go to bed. I want to get into a nice hot bath and read till the water goes cold.
*** It was daylight when I went to bed. Yuck. Usually I don’t have to put the pillow over my head till after I’ve been asleep for a while.
I did actually think—briefly—about trying it on: going back downstairs again, brewing a mind bogglingly strong pot of tea, and starting the day over again. I could use a few unscheduled morning hours. But . . . no. It would confuse the hellhounds. Not to mention not making it to bell ringing tonight. And not being coherent after about noon. And annoying the ME may be amusing in the very short term, but the joke doesn’t last. ME has no sense of humour.
† Except when they say, When are you going to write that sequel to SUNSHINE/Damar?
†† And peering intently at their maps. Occasionally they ask directions. —Glasgow? Uh, no, you must have taken a wrong turning a while back. No, that’s not Hill House, that’s Montmorency’s Folly.
††† Lovecraft’s, of course, not mere Clark Ashton Smith’s.
‡ Blogmoms apparently have no holidays. Quite like hellgoddesses that way.
‡‡ Which is to say I don’t have to get out of bed and get the caffeine working in time to let them in.
‡‡‡ HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Where do I begin. Look at that—eeeek—dust rhinoceros! Look at those cobwebs! Look at that pile of unsorted . . . uh, what is that pile(s) of unsorted—?^ Look at all those buttons waiting to be sewn on! Look at that attic!^^ —I know! I’ll go pot on some little green things! Anything to get out of the house!
^ Shut up, Fiona+
+ She who comes and attempts to Sort Me once a month or so.
^^ No, don’t look at that attic. Whatever you do, don’t look at that attic.
§ Yes I do.
§§ No, saved from the ignominy of preventing the other seven from ringing something really clever. Six good ringers, and me, and Gordon. Gordon’s about my level. We wrestle imprudently beyond our capabilities.
§§§ I should be delighted, thrilled, transported, etc. The problem is that I only learn by grind, and neither South Desuetude or New Arcadia—the only eight bell towers I ring at regularly—regularly have enough good ringers to teach someone who only learns by grind a seven-with-tenor-behind (triples) or eight-bell (major) method. So I have been for some time in a more or less permanent state of mangling Grandsire Triples, on the rare occasions I meet it, like a puppy pulling the stuffing out of an expensive new toy. This gets demoralising. ^
^ Not for the puppy, but for the buyer of the toy.
# Gordon dove for the tenor-behind, the ratbag.
## Gordon and I exchanged high fives.
### So did Gordon. Do I get to mention that he went wrong and had to be hauled back onto his line, and I didn’t?
~ Need to do something about that Cambridge though. Shudder.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.