Bells and Carols
I haven’t got the brain for JANE EYRE tonight. You’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Tomorrow I have A MEETING WITH POTENTIAL NEW VOICE TEACHER*, DENTIST FROM R’LYEH, and, if I’m still walking after the tender ministrations of The Thing That Ate Atlantis, I’m supposed to go ring some more bells tomorrow night. MORE BELLS. MORE BELLS IN THIS WEATHER. AAAAAUGH.
I had three service rings today. This is at least one too many, especially when one of them is at Old Eden in this WEATHER**. Not to mention time of frelling year. It’s barely daylight when I have to get up for Sunday morning service ring which is seriously disorienting for someone who prides herself on sleeping through that knock on the door from the frelling deliveryperson who can’t read that the package says ‘LEAVE THE SUCKER behind the gate’ and will take it away again, leaving a card that says ‘we tried to deliver, but you are a lazy slut and we know you have dishes in the sink and cobwebs in all the corners*** and you don’t deserve this parcel so the phone number on this card is the one that is programmed to disconnect you when you get to the sixteenth choice on our automated phone-answering system.’†
We were the Faithful Four today: Niall, Penelope, Vicky and me. At the first ring that was all we were—and Penelope’s shoulder is bothering her so we needed to nurse her through so she’d make it to the end of the day—four is a lot better than three. We hopefully got all eight bells up and then Niall amused himself by assigning us to different series—usually you just ring the front ones (1, 2, 3, 4) or the back ones (5, 6, 7, 8), but we were ringing things like 1, 3, 4, 6, or 3, 4, 5, 8. Niall was trying for the beginning of that Tchaikovsky concerto that goes dingdingdingCRASH . . . He looked at me. Don’t look at me, I said. I like the weird augmented/diminished minory things that make everybody else’s ears hurt. And the neighbours complain.††
So then I went home and stapled hellhounds into their new arctic gear—which is too large, but this is better than too small, especially in this weather—and dragged them out while they held onto doorframes and railings and said no, no, we can keep our legs crossed a little longer, like maybe April. Eventually I let them drag me back to the cottage where, to their undisguised horror, I bundled them into Wolfgang.††† It took me most of half an hour to chip Wolfgang out of his parking slot‡ and collateral damage included breaking my dustpan. Plastic doesn’t like getting that cold.‡‡
Second service ring . . . I walked to Old Eden, and very odd it felt too, hellhoundless. I was inclined to be sulky about superfluous walking, but since at the moment hellhounds feel all walking—that is, outdoors—is superfluous, I don’t feel too guilty about shortchanging them.‡‡‡ But while the county council is clearly working its (cold) butt off—there were sanders and gritters out there scattering their welcome largesse on the main street when I was coming back from first service ring, which is not exactly late on a Sunday morning—the back roads are all deathtraps and there is no front way to Old Eden.
And the bells. Dear gods in the (deaf) heavens, the bells at Old Eden in this weather. Niall and Vicky and I got the rotters up, and it took three or four times as long as it should do because the wretched things just stick periodically and say ‘no. Won’t. And you can’t make me’—and they do this serially so the other two of you are hanging around while one of you is hauling away desperately and muttering ineffective charms§ to make the beastly thing SWING. ARRRGH. We had a fifth person, Ginny, Old Eden’s tower captain and only local ringer, but she doesn’t actually ring much, so between Penelope’s shoulder and Ginny’s lack of confidence, that was Niall, Vicky and me on the front line again . . . and I’ve changed my mind about the five at Old Eden. The three is worse. The three, as Vicky says, is malicious. Guess who was on the three. The five just comes down on you all the time. You can at least rely on it to keep coming down on you. The three dives and swoops like a frelling swift, which is fine in a bird, but not on a bell you’re trying to ring in some semblance of order and rhythm.
By the third service ring, back at New Arcadia, I was beginning to feel a little less than totally on the spot.§§ We had a fifth ringer again, Roger, who, unfortunately, can ring methods, which meant we had to ring methods, and since Penelope had this shoulder scam going she got to stick to the treble. I was thinking, however, as I negotiated Grandsire doubles with no tenor (sixth bell ringing last every row) to steady the proceedings, that this is one of the more distressing practical manifestations of progress: what you can ring when you’re too tired to think. I’m not complaining, exactly, but it does feel rather like driving at speed down a small dark lane with no headlights. Any moment now there’s going to be a terrible crash. . . .
Meanwhile Peter had been possessed by the deranged notion of attending the service after that last ring, which was the (slightly pre-) Christmastide nine lessons and carols. For loyalty’s sake I said I’d come too. Frelling British and their frelling alternative tunes to carols I grew up with and they only give you the WORDS not the MUSIC. Haven’t these people ever heard of hymnals? You just get the little printed order of service and are expected to cope. Okay, I’m not going to argue about Vaughan Williams’ arrangement of O Little Town of Bethlehem even if I’d never heard it till I moved over here, and actually both Hark the Herald and It Came Upon a Midnight are really pretty too. But they’re not what I know. And then there are those someone-is-playing-ping-pong-with-your-head moments when you know the tune from somewhere else (not that you can remember where, but you’re pretty sure it’s not a Christmas carol) and have never seen the words before in your life. And vice versa.
However after twenty years in this frelling country (not to mention a passionate attachment to Vaughan Williams and/or anything that sounds like a British folk tune) I’ve picked up most of their idea of the standards. And . . .
. . . I was having a really good time. It didn’t occur to me till about halfway through—when I was amusing myself singing alternate verses of Silent Night an octave up in head voice and an octave down in chest voice—that this is the first Christmas since Blondel wreaked a certain amount of implausible magic on me—I started voice lessons with him I think August a year ago? Last December was much too soon for me to be noticing much difference but I sure noticed it tonight. We had a seriously augmented choir for the service and for two of carols toward the end the choir director exhorted us the congregation to go for it, because the choir was going to be singing a descant/trying really hard to throw us off. Fine. I like a challenge (occasionally). So I was singing like a mad thing. And at the end Peter turned to me and said, you realise this was all a secret plot for me to hear you sing, since I never seem to. You sounded really good. —Awwwwwwwww.
I hope I like My New Voice Teacher. Except that Peter has just come downstairs to tell me that I may not be going anywhere as it’s supposed to be snowing all tomorrow afternoon. . . .
* * *
* !!!!!!!!!!!!
** Have I mentioned the weather? In the last ten seconds? It’s 20F/-6C out there and the wind chill makes it 14F/-10C. Yes, it’s worse in Wisconsin (and Antarctica). I don’t live in Wisconsin (or Antarctica).
*** I should be so lucky it’s only corners.
† One of Peter’s presents still hasn’t arrived.
†† Although this is the time of year when the neighbours pop out of the woodwork and thank us for ringing the bells, which is pretty satisfying. I wish a few of these people would take it into their heads to learn to ring however. It would be even more satisfying to have the Faithful Eight.
††† Although we have developed a system. They jump in resentfully and then stand there staring at me and daring me to make them LIE. DOWN. So then I swathe them in blankets and then I make them lie down. They are, I have to say, totally adorable, folded up in their box and almost disappeared except for noses (and the still-rather-resentful eyes) under layers of swaddling.
‡ I also had to chisel the dustbin out of its glacier since collection day is tomorrow. And sweep the frelling stairs to the famous gate behind which I am hoping to find a parcel some time tomorrow.
‡‡ Yes, I shovel snow with my dustpan. This is less insane than it sounds—remember that my cul de sac is a jigsaw better suited to medium-sized hedgehogs and small goblins, and is only slightly too large to make a good game board, you know, one of the ones where you have to move forty-three pieces around to get the forty-fourth out. If I used a snow shovel I would merely be hitting myself with it (tolerable) or putting dents in the car next to me (intolerable) or putting dents in it by ramming the little retaining wall for my flower bed (counterproductive). Also, I have nowhere to put a snow shovel at the cottage. I may eventually get one for Third House, but the road and the driveway there are flat.
‡‡‡ Thank the otherwise evil weather gods that this weather is happening when they’re four years old, rather than four months or even two years, when they’d hate the outdoors just as much but would be driving me mental indoors. As it is their napping skills have become truly impressive in the last two years.
§ No, no! Charms! Just charms!
§§ I tend to be a little short of sleep on Sundays. For some reason.
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