The Therapeutic Value of Handbells
. . . a hitherto unknown and unexamined aspect of the handbeller’s art, craft and mania. Yesterday was roadkill. Yesterday remains better not described, barring the weather, which was glorious, and I did manage to totter out and fossick around the garden for several hours. I love this time of year; despite the horror and outrage at all the plant life that didn’t make it through the winter*, there’s also not merely the pleasure of what’s alive and coming into growth** but there is all that space left both by the annuals that were supposed to die, and the deaders that weren’t, and looking around there’s that ridiculous sense that this year you know what you’re doing and you’re going to have things under control. Hahahahahahahahahaha, etc.***
Anyway. Sunlight on the face and bent back are always good, but yesterday was still bad. Today started out even worse. Last night I couldn’t sleep and this morning I couldn’t wake up. Eventually the pitiableness of hellhounds† got me moving, but it was ludicrously warm today, unhingingly warm, that kind of spring warm that your still-winter-braced body can’t really cope with†† and neither hellhounds nor I were moving very fast, nor, in my case, very coherently. Got down to the mews, turned on computer and my brain was not working. Not. Working. And handbells were early today††† because Niall was ringing a handbell peal this evening,‡ so I wasn’t going to get any extra vitamin-D time in the garden. Moan. Moan. I even considered cancelling, but while Fernanda has decided not to run away to sea after all, she won’t be back till next week, so if I cancelled nobody would get to ring. Which of course would distress Niall profoundly, since he’s only ringing a peal (note: two and a half hours) later.
But just the three of us would mean ringing St Clements again, and while I had (to my own considerable surprise) rung it on the trebles last week Niall, because Niall is like this, had told me to look at the 5-6, and I had looked at it, and it had looked at me, and it had said, nyah nyah nyah. And when I looked at the trebles again this afternoon in something of a sweat, they looked like hieroglyphics from an alien and inimical culture. So Niall and Colin blew in, dismayingly on time, and more or less the first thing Colin said was, yes! Happy to ring another practise quarter on the first [of April. Yes, sic]! —which before I went into my decline was something I’d urgently wanted Colin to get back to me about, and since I went into my decline I’ve been thinking well, what a good thing I hadn’t set up that quarter. Ah. Um. Niall was busily unpacking bells and he said, so, what do you want to ring? And I said, Well, I assume you’re going to make me ring St Clements, and I did look at the 5-6, but—
St Clements! Great! said Niall, handing me the 5-6.
No, no, I said feebly. That’s what I was trying to tell you, I’m not ready to ring the 5-6.
Yes you are, said Niall, handing the trebles to Colin, who promptly rang them. Niall followed on the 3-4.
Whimper, I said, and rang the 5-6.
There was, let me say, a lot more dragging of the 5-6 by the other two pairs than was at all pretty, but as does just happen sometimes with ME‡‡, I could feel my energy level starting to flow back in again, like a turning tide, and Pooka the Wonder iPhone had clearly given me more of an idea of the shape of the method while I was learning the trebles than I realised. By the time we’d stopped for tea and then started picking our bells up again afterward and Niall said, what do you want to ring now?, I said instantly, I want to get this. So we kept on ringing St Clements with me on the decreasingly inept 5-6. Now you want to be looking at the 3-4, said Niall on parting.
Do you suppose I should be telling the NHS about handbells?
* * *
* Part of the outrage is the weirdness of what does and doesn’t come through. I must have ten snapdragons still alive, which should all have been dead in last November’s long hard frosts—and I was sure they’d bite it when we had three freezing nights in a row last week because I’d been dumb enough to clear out around them and trim back the dead bits—well there’s still time, it’s not May yet. On the other hand I have some supposedly-nearly-the-original-wild violas that are supposed to be tough as old boots and to spread like ground elder and . . . they keep dying. Drainage? Don’t talk to me about drainage. Having lost them in the ground I have started putting them in pots where I can provide MAJOR ENGINEERED DRAINAGE . . . and they still die. I think I’m giving up this year.
** Markham’s Pink [clematis]! Yaay! I kept losing it in the ground, against the back wall, so this third one I put in a pot. And this is its second year. And it’s growing. In fact . . . it’s growing too frelling much. It’s going to burst out of that pot and it’s taking over the little picket fence that faces the kitchen door. Arrrrrgh. Life with plants. If they’re not dead, they’re triffids. But still. YAAY!
*** Pause to wipe my eyes and get my breath back.
† The big melting-gold eyes, the flattened, beseeching ears, the hopeful tails. . . .
†† Especially when the frelling temperature is seesawing 20 or 30 degrees (F) every day. Glurk. The ME can’t resist adding its distinctive anarchy to the situation either. I have been looking and feeling a lot like a badly-knitted hellhound square the last two days.
††† Quick—another cup of tea.
‡ Yesterday’s other bright spot was a cup of tea with Penelope who, poor woman, mostly had to listen to me moan. But she mentioned in passing that Niall at present is ringing seven days a week. And I suspect this does not take into account days when he rings twice.
‡‡ And depression, in my experience of it.
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