Cascades of notes and . . .
I actually got to bed early last night because I was so frightened of handbells at the cathedral. Even on enough sleep I’m pretty much a zombie at morning service ring* but the handbell gig was at 1:45, which meant plenty of time to wake up, caffeinate, and have a nervous breakdown. And then there was a convocation of incompetent drivers at the mews so I couldn’t get out because everyone was flapping and fluttering and refusing to back up because they’re cack-handed twits and they don’t want to scratch their paintwork, which meant Niall was already waiting for me while I was madly slinging hellhounds through the door of the cottage and failing to have time to change into one of my really amusing pairs of All Stars.** We spent the drive to the cathedral city comparing bruises: neither spouse had been overjoyed with our choice of Sunday afternoon activity.*** And then we couldn’t find a place to park† so by the time we arrived at the cathedral door I, at least, was already in a state of advanced trauma.
We never did figure out either whose idea we were or why. Three handbell ringers at a cathedral is like a pea†† at the bottom of a tall stack of mattresses: only the truly sensitive and discerning are going to notice. First they had us round at the front door which is like two storeys high and the length of a short city block. Then they arranged us at the side door, which is only about six times the size of a normal door†††, and then they brought us inside . . . at about the point that the rock band began tuning up. No, really. This was some kind of outreach thingy, which is fine, but you don’t really want to outreach handbells and Spinal Tap simultaneously.‡ It was excellent practise for our concentration, but that’s about all it was.
The best moment however was when one of the priests, decked out in a flashy blue dogcollar, and who had been trying to arrange us to best effect without grasping that there was no best effect available, got out his programme and a pen and said, What do you call yourselves? We looked at each other blankly till it occurred to me that he must be expecting a name like Spinal Tap or Steeleye Span or Harry Christopher and The Sixteen or Bells of Death.‡‡ We don’t! I said, and he said, oh, I’ll just put handbell ringers then, shall I? —If we get into the local paper as Handbell Ringers‡‡‡ I’ll let you know.
And then I came home and was swamped by hellhounds§, finally ate my lunch§§, wrote a few paragraphs of PEG II §§§ and plunged out into the cottage garden to deadhead roses and . . . check for damage. Last night, I’d had a hasty bath#, pulled the plug, as one does, and while I was climbing into my dressing gown was somewhat distracted by the loud noise of falling water. Surely the bath draining doesn’t usually make that much noise—?
No. It doesn’t. When hellhounds and I got downstairs for hellhounds to go out one last time and (possibly) have a snack, there was water sheeting down the outside of the kitchen window##, soapy, steamy water, to the considerable consternation of the rhodochiton atrosanguineum and the dark maroon geranium which is not Lord Bute on the kitchen-window shelf. AAAAAAAUGH. I have no idea. I moved the rhodochiton and the geranium, which were being hammered, and myself getting fairly re-drenched in the process, thinking owlishly that I had not wanted to meet that water again, and . . . waited. It’s a small bath and I don’t fill it very full even when I do have time to read, but it took a remarkably long time to pour out all over the back of the house. Today there’s a certain grey haze to the window and the glass door—and cleaning windows is so my favourite thing. NOT—but the plants all look okay. And tomorrow I am going to ask Atlas to climb on a ladder and look at the funnel where the bath pipe drains: as far as I can tell the water was simply bouncing off the connection: like maybe a blackbird had built a nest in it.
* * *
* I’m also badly missing Ditherington practise, where we do—did—stuff like endless Grandsire doubles for our beginners—which gives people like me the opportunity to grind it into our synapses. Not only do I only learn by grind, I start to lose stuff if I don’t keep grinding.
** Grumble grumble. If I’m going to be tortured by public attention I might as well get some fun out of it. I’m sure I’ve told you that my idea of a great party is to get dressed up, make an entrance . . . and then go home and put my jeans back on and spend the time reading.
*** You may remember that I named Penelope Penelope because she’s a bell widow? Niall is out most nights ringing with Menelaus and Hector and Iphigenia. Peter merely gets on me for Doing Too Much. Yes, the monthly Old Eden practise is tomorrow. Yes, I spent about half an hour phoning round this evening to wheedle enough ringers into coming that Niall, Vicky and I won’t be wasting our time, and Vicky won’t be mad at me. When people hear Vicky’s voice on the phone they tend to say yes, ma’am, how high? When people hear my voice on the phone, they say, who?
† TOURISTS. ARRRGH. You know they’re tourists, all the locals are at home watching the World Cup.
†† or even three peas
††† plus Tudor roses and gargoyles
‡ You know, the film unaccountably missed handbells. Think of it: Gnomehenge and handbells.
‡‡ I’m tempted to turn this into a contest. Come up with the best name for a method-ringing handbell group of varying size and membership, and win . . .
‡‡‡ Or Bells of Death
§ Who said, we not only ate our lunch we ate it early and what is our reward? You go off and LEAVE US for HOURS? What have we LEARNED FROM THIS?
§§ And had a nice cup of very strong tea to give myself an excuse to be still trembling like a clueless SUV driver faced with the prospect of backing around a corner. I was thinking, however, that three of us ringing handbells in public is fabulous practise for singing in Oisin’s future barbershop duodecuple.
§§§ ‘Afterward, she had planned to take the king’s hounds for a canter round the park with herself and her pony, and with the sixth sense dogs have for the immediate prospect of such excursions, five hounds had followed her out. But she spent the next hour hidden in a window embrasure in her bedroom—with a carpet of hounds at her feet.’
# It’s almost not worth having a bath if I can’t read in it. But I get dizzy in those big dry cleaning cylinders.
## I am sooo glad I had closed said British screen-free window when I turned the light on.
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