Post quarter
Yes, we got it—the quarter. The quarter peal that I’ve been obsessing about all this last week, the quarter peal to Daniel’s memory*, the quarter peal that Vicky managed to end-run me into organising. Forty-five minutes of Grandsire Triples with Colin conducting. Yes, we got it.
But it was not a thing of beauty, and that, I fear, was my fault. I was only ringing the treble, so straight out to the back and straight down to the front again with no scary zigzags, and no even more scary changes of the pattern when Colin makes a call. But I could not find my rhythm. Could. Not. Find.
Sigh. When success is not victory.
It wasn’t dreadful, and I didn’t get yelled at or anything; I didn’t go wrong, exactly, I just wasn’t particularly right, and as a result the band never settled down and the Grandsire was more of a stagger than a song. SIIIIIGH.
I phoned Niall later on to moan, poor man, and I could hear him trying to figure out ways to be tactful. Insofar as he had any advice, regular blog readers will be able to chorus the answer: Ring more quarters.
Which leaves me in an interesting quandary. In pure, absolute terms, he’s right. The best way to ring good quarters is to ring lots of quarters. Works like a charm. But I don’t ring quarters because of the ME;** I don’t do anything that I can’t suddenly sit down in the middle of. It doesn’t happen often out on hurtles, but it happens, and hellhounds just flop down too and wait for me to reintegrate my component parts. I haven’t had to pull Wolfgang over and wait for the glitter-fairies to stop dancing on the windscreen so I can see the frelling road in a long time—but it has happened and it could happen again.
Quarter peals are scary because they’re planned and organised and scheduled, and you’re letting down the rest of your band if you splinter one. If you go wrong during a touch during practise or even service ring, the band just stops, and either tries again or does something else. It can be very exasperating, but you haven’t wrecked anyone’s day. And because quarters are planned and organised and scheduled, and you will be the Jerk That Blew It if you blow it***, I can’t help obsessing about it. Almost everything annoys the ME, but obsessing annoys it more than most things.
The only way to obsess less is to ring more quarters. You see the problem. But . . . another but . . . the forty-five-minutes part is perhaps less of an issue than I’ve made it. Yes, it’s a risk, especially because I go in there terrified of the forty-five minutes, and terror is tiring. But I’ve rung pretty frelling nearly nonstop at thinly-attended practises at all my regular towers—and practise lasts an hour and a half. I was surprised when I heard the bells come back into rounds this evening and Colin say ‘that’s all’. I didn’t think we were anywhere near the end yet. So I may have a bit more slack about this than I think.
Hmmmm. . . .
Meanwhile, however valid or invalid the cause, I’m shattered.†† And then there was a little trouble about the champagne. Well, of course there was going to be champagne, right? Did any of you doubt it? Peter fished one of the bottles I’d bought on sale at Tesco’s††† a while ago out from the cupboard under the stairs.‡ It had come in a box. He opened the box and discovered . . . the bottle is wearing one of those big plastic tamper-proof stopper thingies over its cork, so we can’t actually open it.‡‡ Fortunately we are not a one-bottle household: Peter went back under the stairs and found another bottle of champagne. And he’s offered to ring up Tesco’s tomorrow and try to find someone to reason with. No of course we don’t have the receipt from several months ago.
Daniel rang in my very first quarter, eleven years ago, when the rest of the band carried me through trebling to plain bob doubles. I haven’t come as far as I might like, but I am a ringer. Thanks, Daniel. One slightly wonky quarter of Grandsire Triples and a champagne toast to you.
* * *
* One of several. Colin’s already run one at South Desuetude and Rupert, my old ringing master from over ten years ago, has organised one after the funeral at East Persnickety, my old tower and Daniel’s home tower. Those are only the ones I know about; I bet there are others.
** I was having a bleak moment, as one does after one has not lived up to one’s own standards, and wondering if I should be ringing at all. There are of course two answers to that: yes and no. And even I admit that ‘no’ looks a bit like ‘if you can’t do it PERFECTLY then NEVER MIND,’ and we just had a lecture about that in Black Bear’s guest post last night, which a lot of forum members seem to be agreeing with. And ‘yes’ includes not only that RINGING NEEDS RINGERS but that I have the first, crucial virtue, which is that I keep showing up.
*** The correct ringing term is ‘fire out’. You lose a quarter, you fire out. A quarter that fires out in the final few minutes ruins everyone’s day big time.
† I called a tiny harmless touch of plain bob doubles at service ring this morning and it went on forever because being the conductor makes even tiny harmless touches go on forever, partly because with every successful call my terror level cranks up a notch: Oh gods I’ve got this far. . . .
†† I’m also half-sick with adrenaline aftermath—no, nothing to do with bell ringing. I took hellhounds out for their final perambulation^ after the quarter, and was doddering along behind them when I heard someone using a loud dog-commanding voice: the kind of loud dog-commanding voice that tells you immediately that the owner of the voice is not in control. And I dragged my weary eyes up and there was a frelling off lead Rottweiler standing there looking at us.
We have more or less unpleasant encounters with aggressive off lead domestic fauna^^ rather too often, as you know. But most of the time as I’m bracing myself for grappling hooks and hostile boarders, I’m thinking, okay, it’s a spaniel, it’s a (small) terrier—it’s usually a frelling terrier—it’s a frelling-frelling Lab—we’re probably not going to die. I do not feel this way about certain breeds: Alsatians. Staffies. Bullies.^^^ Rottweilers.
I crank my guys in and we stand dead still. The woman with the loud voice follows her four-legged killing machine as it walks slowly toward us. I’m looking at those jaws . . . and she gets a lead around it. GAAAH. ARRRRGH. SERIOUSLY RUDE RELIEF-EXPRESSING LANGUAGE. But it is, furthermore, worse than that. The mews is set well back from the main road, tucked away behind the Big Pink Blot which still looks like the local big house but is now condominiums. The wall around its parkland is still there, as is the avenue of trees. There’s a nice wide swathe of grass between the wall and the trees, then the pavement/sidewalk and the road. The busy main road. No one with the sense the gods gave a quahog would let their dog off lead along this stretch. And yet several of my ugliest encounters have been here. As today. My stomach hurts just thinking about it. Quarter peals are nothing to the fight-or-flight hormone surge caused by being in the company of your friendly goofball hellhounds and seeing something like this coming your way. One of the additional points is that if you meet death on legs out in the middle of nowhere you always have the final resort of letting your guys off lead: nothing is ever going to catch hellhounds. But you can’t do that with a busy road right there.
^ They probably wanted a hurtle, but I wasn’t up to it.
^^ Actually this does include cats. But that’s a rant for another day.
^^^ I love bullies.+ I love Staffies.+ I love Alsatians. I love Dobes and Rotties. But they scare the crap out of me sauntering stiff-legged and off-lead toward me.
+ And yes, I know they’re terriers too. But you rarely die of being bitten by a Jack Russell.
††† The moral to this story is, support your local independent grocer and wine shop.
‡ The mews has a cupboard under the stairs. Unlike some people’s cottages.
‡‡ Just by the way, what is the point? If you’re the kind of person who pinches bottles of champagne, you’re probably the kind of person who will just break the neck of the freller. The big plastic dealies on clothing make more sense; you can’t get them off without damaging the fabric.
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