Nonstandard Monday
Today has been a long spectacular hurtle that even almost six years with hellhounds ill-prepared me for. I am expecting to fall off my chair and lie on the floor moaning and twitching feebly . . . probably before I finish this blog. I can possibly semaphore to Darkness what buttons to press to hang it* but I do not guarantee my usual elegant peroration and epigrammatic finish.**
I was so unnerved by Oisin’s praise last Friday that I’ve hardly known how to practise. This is that old ‘something to lose’ thing. The great thing about beginnings is that you don’t know how yet. It’s all good. Once you start learning anything . . . you have somewhere to fall. Down. It’s very frustrating having no particular talent—or in this case, voice—but it’s also liberating. I don’t have to take it seriously. I can obsess, because I will obsess, frivolously. La la la la la la. And (for better or worse) it’s not like I’ve discovered my inner Beverly Sills or anything.*** But there are increasing numbers of (fleeting) moments when there is maybe even something going on with my singing . . . and occasionally, thrillingly, a few of these moments string themselves together. It’s not the high F in Che Faro—F is not high—it’s the terrifying sticking your head above the parapet. This is your big moment . . . Noooooooo. Eeeeeeeeep. And I tend to sing it accordingly.† Plus that ratbag ‘ben’ you have to sing it on, which is not singer-friendly and which does not help. The other song I particularly wanted to look at is The Minstrel Boy—yes, I am a sap, sue me—because I start the run up to that first (unhigh) F without much trouble and it’s like ‘okay I can do this’ and then on the second run up to that same F I lose my nerve and get all thin and squeaky. I think it’s something about emotional engagement—you may remember that this song got mixed up with Diana’s death for me—and it’s like suddenly, whoa, uh, no, maybe not. But I love the song. I want to sing it. Singing is so frelling revealing, even when you do it badly. Your Blasted Body Is Your Blasted Instrument, Get Used to It. Um. And I don’t know what Nadia did—I never know what Nadia did, even though she tells me††—but my last go through was rough and raw and rather awful, but there was something there, you know? My problem is mostly about shutting down. This was about opening up to the extent that I could no longer control it. Speaking of eeeeep. Eeeeeeep.
The day was already going a lick. I’d got down to the mews late (of course) and had my head down over my computer slightly longer than I should have and thus fed hellhounds lunch slightly later than I should have. But they were milling around my feet looking for Mysteriously Dropped Chicken Bits Oops so I (foolishly) wasn’t expecting trouble. Whereupon Chaos decided not to eat. This was absolutely classic Chaos—he was clearly hungry, it wasn’t that he’d picked up some bloody tourist’s dropped chicken bones in the street yesterday—but some frelling ritual or other for a Monday in an even-numbered year when Aldebaran is in the ascendant and Jupiter aligns with Mars had been left incomplete. ARRRRRGH. At slightly after the last minute he ate after all YAAAAAAAY, and we then tore back to the cottage because I had an errand to run on my way to Nadia†††.
I was at best going JUST to make it back to New Arcadia for Niall to pick me up and blast off to Curlyewe. But I made it. And then we sat outside the Curlyewe church for fifteen minutes because our handbell apprentices were late.‡
We rang handbells till people started showing up for tower practise. And then I grabbed my new tower. And . . . the worst of it is, I like Curlyewe. Nice bells. Very nice bells. And, furthermore, eight of them. We rang Grandsire Triples.‡‡ The last thing I need is another Monday tower that is, furthermore, too far away.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to fall out of my chair.
* * *
* No, you’re wrong. If I can learn to circumvent the WordPress gremlins and hang a blog post . . . so can a moderately intelligent dog.
Of the local selection, Darkness is the one who is willing to find problems outside his immediate self-focus interesting. Chaos . . . not so much. Chaos does not speak the standard human-canine language. There certainly are days when I shout YOU ARE THE DUMBEST ANIMAL I HAVE EVER MET . . . but I’m speaking to myself.^ Sighthounds have been bred for thousands of years^^ to make their own decisions. They can’t be asking you for help when they’re flat out after a gazelle. This has its drawbacks in modern urban life. Darkness, however, is clearly trainable as most of the world understands dog training, and I am a Bad Owner because I am neglecting this because I don’t know what to do with his brother. Chaos has his own view of the structure of the universe and while I am the centre of it—more theatrically so than I am Darkness’ holy altar of all—manifestations of his zealous dedication are his own and not particularly open to negotiation or adjustment.^^^
Anyway. If this post ends abruptly and there are a few short dark steely-grey hairs drifting across the margins, you know why.
^ Today, for example. I had a major hissy fit meltdown this afternoon—worst in some time. Worst since I started singing when my computer is really pissing me off because screaming hurts my voice. + The cause is that most of my ME symptoms, barring the really life-stopping no-brain, what planet is this, no-energy, never mind I don’t care worst ones, have all come back in a mean-spirited rabble, as a result of . . . wait for it . . . my daring to eat a little restaurant food with Fiona the other night. I ordered carefully, it was a small meal and there was nothing in it I’m not allowed.++ All my joints hurt, sleep is something that happens to other people, and anything I eat makes me ill. THIS IS SO GREAT. THIS IS SO, SO, SO GREAT. I was running upstairs at the cottage just before I shot off to a long rest-of-day series of events and one of my frelling knees gave out and I had suddenly Had. It. Paroxysm ensued, complete with radical and substantial screaming. This was right before my voice lesson. It’s also a really idiotic waste of energy, when you already have ME.
I’ve never met a dog this stupid.
+ I admit this works better some times than other times. There was a fair amount of shouting at the Metropolitan Opera last night.
++ Okay, what was in that tea bag?
^^ No, really. Salukis have been around recognisably since 7000 BC or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saluki
^^^ See: eating.
** What?
*** All right. I admit it. Siiiiiiigh.
† Siiiiiiigh. Another category of sigh.
†† Except occasionally. When she invokes Teacher Secrets.
††† My watchband broke. Months ago. It’s a perfectly good watch. And they don’t make watchbands for it any more. Finally about the third jeweller I took it to said that she thought their repairpersons could do it. And they did. But it still doesn’t close correctly and I predict the mend is not going to last long. Then what.
And so to cheer myself up, on the way back to Wolfgang, I made a lightning raid on WH Smith and bought . . . five knitting magazines. Just to see what they’re like, you know? The one I was looking for was Vogue Knitting, because they keep trying to sell me a subscription to my iPad, and I have this nostalgic craving to see it in hard copy first.^ On first glance, VK wins hands down for the yarn porn aspect.
I need more stuff to read.
^ One of the ones I bought is American, so it’s not that imported knitting magazines are too subversive for the UK market.
‡ It’s okay. I was knitting.
‡‡ Only a plain course. But something went Horribly Wrong and I thought nooooooo I can’t even ring a plain course any more, kill meeeeee, but Niall told me afterward it wasn’t me, it was someone else. Well, I’m sorry for the someone else, but I’m relieved to be permitted to go on living. Even if I did make a, ahem, dog’s dinner of Cambridge.
Doodah doodah
We rang a quarter peal tonight.
Huh? Yes, my reaction exactly.
Handbells are in some slight disarray at present, chiefly on account of Gemma being so inconvenient as to change surgeries/clinics and therefore change her Thursday evening schedule. At the moment Niall and I are double-booked for Thursdays with Colin and Fridays with Gemma, and I have said, in a squeaky, high-pitched voice that I can’t do two handbell evenings a week*, but people’s lives keep getting in the way** so what is getting rung (or wrung) from week to week mostly isn’t two evenings on handbells anyway.
Today has been somewhat overshadowed by yesterday’s extreme excitements and I got moving [sic] late even for me. I had also promised to take Peter to the garden centre this afternoon, this afternoon being the only time even remotely available for the foreseeable future, and if I didn’t do it quickly, this being the time of year when you really don’t want holes in your borders, and anything you plant will, if you’re lucky, riot and burgeon***, Peter might do something drastic like buy a garden gnome at the farmer’s market.†
I’m broke and my garden is already full of Little Things Waiting to Be Potted On (Again)†† and the only thing I wanted was pink snapdragons††† so I’d brought the hellhounds because while Peter was cruising I took them for a hurtle. The only problem with this diversion tactic is that the footpath possibilities around this particular garden centre are unusually excellent, so the temptation is to come back for a nice hellhound hurtle and while I’m in the area . . . ‡
So we zapped home again and I’d repotted the horrifyingly rootbound viola, which will probably reel and stagger a little and then come on again famously, when Colin showed up early. Niall usually is early. So we sat down and Niall started unveiling handbells and said, What do you want to ring? And I said, well, due to circumstances more or less beyond my control I have No Brain so it had better be undemanding.
I know! said Colin brightly. We should ring a quarter (of bob minor)! Just to prove we can! Since it’s just the three of us again!
What?
I think I agreed‡‡‡ because it was going to be less awful than trying to struggle through plain courses of frelling Cambridge, which, now that Thursdays are the three of us again, is going to make my life a misery.
And it was less awful. It was even (whisper it) kind of fun.
* * *
* Which doesn’t take into account the occasional evening at Curlyewe. Curlyewe tower practise is Monday, so Niall has begun tentatively trying to get over there one Monday a month, they ring handbells before tower practise, and then he stays on—and Curlyewe, like pretty much everywhere else in this area, is hurting for ringers, so they’re glad to have a visitor, especially a good ringer like Niall. I’d quite like to ‘grab’ Curlyewe^ and supposing there’s nothing particularly strange about the tower or its bells I’m a good-enough mediocre ringer I can probably contribute something to the practise. Probably.
Except for the little fact that Monday is my voice lesson, and Curlyewe is well on the wrong side of Mauncester. Niall leaves New Arcadia at six . . . and I usually get home five or ten past. Niall suggested helpfully that I could just come straight on from my voice lesson, which would probably make up the time . . . uh huh. It’s twice as far as any of Colin’s towers, there’s handbells as well as tower bells and no break anywhere. . . and I’m shattered on a Monday that I have to drive myself to Colin’s practise and I’ve had a cup of tea and a sit-down between voice lesson and bell practise. I don’t think so.
And so, because I am deranged and Niall is my bad angel, I’m going to try to blast back from voice lesson on Monday, pick up an apple and a cup of tea with a lid on it^^, and be flattened into the passenger seat of Niall’s car^^^ as he stamps on the ‘go’ pedal a few minutes later than usual.
^ Grabbing a tower is going somewhere to ring where you’ve never rung before, specifically to say that you have. Quite a few good ringers do this in a low-key way because they’re good ringers and like to travel around ringing in different towers and that’s fine. Obsessive tower grabbing is kind of frowned on, but ringing somewhere you haven’t rung before because the opportunity arises is normal, in so far as bell ringing and bell ringers can ever be considered normal.
^^ Whoever suggested knitting a slightly oversized egg cozy for a tea mug cozy—thank you. I’m going to try that. Supposing I can figure out how. And whoever said that the steam from the cup is going to soggify the cosy past usefulness, well, I won’t know till I’ve tried it. I drink my cups of tea pretty fast+ but not quite fast enough, and I like it hot. Maybe I should knit several, and then I can string up a little tiny washing-line where I peg them out to dry . . . .
+ If I drank them SLOWER I would drink FEWER.
^^^ which is only a few years younger than Wolfgang, and has more miles on it
** Although, life . . . in Niall’s case this probably means that he’s had an offer to ring a handbell full peal of Snarkalepsy Draggleharrow and is cutting us.
*** Did I tell you WE HAD ANOTHER (*&^%$£”!!!!!!!!!! FROST A FEW NIGHTS AGO? THE MIDDLE OF UNGLEDAGBLAGUNDERING MAY IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND AND WE HAD A FROST? I’m assuming it was not severe and the stuff still underground is fine. That’s FINE.
† Which attracts some pretty disturbing riffraff. I haven’t seen any garden gnomes yet but then I’m usually hellhounded, and we don’t linger.
I could always knit the gnome something . . . inappropriate. Although ‘wire’ and ‘garrotte’ are the words that come first to mind, which, in relation to garden gnomes, are highly appropriate.
. . . Although I’ve always kind of wanted a flamingo . . .
†† And at least one juvvie robin. Yaaaay. Bumptious little so and so. There may be more than one, but so far I’m only seeing one at a time, and he’s so breathtakingly foolhardy—as far as he’s concerned, I’m the Mealworm Lady, and there are no ifs, ands or buts—I’m assuming the one I’m seeing is the same one, although I’m still hoping there may be a slightly more sensible, reserved one or two still lurking in the shrubbery. But he, and siblings if any, are clearly flying.
I’ve also clearly got two adults . . . where are you nesting this time? I’m not going to supply mealworms to ungrateful robins that go nest in other people’s gardens. Mum’ll be disappearing any minute now, I assume, to sit on the new eggs. Whiiiiiine.
††† I did very well. I somehow picked up a variegated-leaf so-called hardy fuchsia, which they never are with me, but if I keep ’em warm they usually do very well, and a fabulous rusty-orange osteospermum AND THEY HAD PINK SNAPDRAGONS YAAAAAAY^ so I dumped these three modest acquisitions in Peter’s cart and ran out the door.
^ I’d bought yellow and white elsewhere, but they were all out of pink which will not do.
‡ We got back to find Peter unloading his cart into the boot and I picked up the gorgeous black-leaved cimicifuga and said oh gods, I almost bought this, I love black leaves, and Peter said, helpfully, I can go back and get you one, I remember exactly where they are. Oh . . . all right, I said, folding instantly, and then, while he was off finding me a black cimicifuga, I was finishing unloading his cart and oh gods, they have dierama, I adore dierama, they just frelling keep dying on me . . . and I COULDN’T STAND IT so I locked the car (with hellhounds and my knapsack in it, and all the rubbish from the boot on the roof waiting to be restowed) and raced off to find Peter and the cimicifuga to ask where he found the dierama^, and then on the way back from the dierama I fell over a table of (horribly rootbound, just by the way) violas and HAD TO HAVE ALL OF THEM (I also adore pansies and that entire family) but pulled myself together and only bought one . . .
So, having gone for one plant^^, I came home with six. Which is really VERY GOOD.
^ WORD YOU RATBAG WILL YOU FRELLING STOP AUTOCORRECTING DIERAMA TO DIORAMA? IF I MEANT DIORAMA I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN DIORAMA
^^ Well, one tray of plants. Snapdragons are plebeian annual bedding plants. You buy them in trays. Six snapdragons counts as ONE PLANT. Yes it does.
‡‡ And I was fine with Ascension Day as soon as I was sure it was about Jesus and not the queen.
Handbells, and further bulletins on comparative ickiness
Niall and I went haring across the landscape this evening*, looking for Curlyewe. Our new lot of handbell ringers are from Curlyewe and last time they came to New Arcadia Niall suggested, despite my frantic gestures,** we come to them next time. ARRRRGH. I do not commute. Commuting is something other people do.***
Niall picked me up tonight, so all I had to do was hold onto my seat.† But Curlyewe is in the same section of enchanted landscape that Tir nan Og†† is, which is to say that you can’t get there from here, and even if you could, you’d miss it in the fairy mist. Maps lie, and signposts move around. Possibly Niall had in mind outrunning the magic.
I guess it worked, since we got there. Eventually. I had been even less enthusiastic about our expedition when I found out they were expecting us to ring at the church. Doesn’t someone have a sitting-room we could use? A nice warm sitting-room with mod cons like an electric kettle and a loo? Whimper. So I was wearing six extra layers and fingerless gloves††† and a good thing too. Although there was both a loo and a kitchen with an electric kettle . . . there was even an electric fire, which Enoch put up on a shelf and angled down at us as we sat in our little circle . . . and I was still freezing to death.
But handbells were rung. Farrell is back at university, but Oliver is beginning to ring little touches of bob minor; Enoch is beginning to get through plain courses of bob minor; and Olga . . . needs more self-confidence, and an iPhone with Mobel on it. She is bringing back horrible memories of Niall and Esme trying to teach me. . . .
But the main thing is, the three of them really aren’t ready to cope alone, and neither Niall nor I have a regular free evening left. I don’t know what we do now. Pity we can’t use a little of that fairy magic and call up a handbell-ringing golem. . . .
* * *
* At an extreme rate of speed. Frell it, honeybun, I want to live to my sixtieth birthday.
** You could see him thinking, poor thing, she has cramp.
*** Yes, I’m a cow.^ But it’s a little like judging a book by its cover. There are too many books. If I really, really hate the cover well, great, there’s one I don’t have to buy. DISCARD. YAAAY. There are too many interesting things to do and see and get involved in. If they take more than twenty minutes to get to, great, there are closer ones. DISCARD. YAAAY.
I admit there’s a sliding scale about this. If Nadia were a bell tower, I’d be looking for something closer.^^ And the Japanese conversation lessons I’m still promising myself after I finish SHADOWS, which is a little perverse, but there’s no way I have brain or energy to start now, will be farther away than Nadia. However, they have helpfully said that a good deal can be done via Skype.^ While they also, equally helpfully, send me occasional links to interesting events at the Japan Society in London.
Anyway. Niall is a nicer human being than I am. If it were up to me, if a bunch of beginners want to learn to ring handbells, they can come to us. A bit like I go to Nadia—or to the language school.#
. . . Oh, and yes, both my Japanese cookbooks arrived. Someone on Twitter (?) asked a few days ago. I think that’s one of the things that got buried in the post-flu avalanche of Missed Stuff. It’s not that the flu was all that severe—it was a ratbag but it wasn’t serious—it’s just that I’m always not quite coping as a way of life, so any spanner in the works really does me in, like a mild wind will knock over a cardboard house. I was going to blog about my new cookbooks—they’re lovely. Maybe I still will. I can pull them off the shelf## and add them to the pile of things to be dealt with NOW. RIGHT NOW. I MEAN NOW.
^ I’m also a cow with ME, and driving is a genuine bugbear.
^^ On a heavy Monday, let’s say when I’ve done a particularly intense stint of work before my voice lesson, and Niall isn’t going to Colin’s that night so if I want to go I have to drive myself, when I get home again I may be just beginning to see the little smoke wisps in my peripheral vision that mean STOP NOW.
^^^ Supposing Skype is in the mood. A language I know—which is to say English—is usually pretty challenging and video? Are you kidding?
# Which may indeed turn out to be too far. In which case I will have to find a Skype pixie/hobgoblin/troll and bribe the frell out of it.
## Yes. They’re on a SHELF. I hope you’re impressed.
† YAAAAAAAAAH. It’s amazing what a 15-year-old Peugeot can do.
†† Er—Tir nan Og, Hampshire. I have rung there occasionally. When I can find it.
††† NO NOT THOSE FINGERLESS GLOVES. They’re still in a bucket in the greenhouse.
Diane in MN
I’ve never had a plastic bag break, but oh how I appreciate the ewww grossness of your situation. I have taken to using plastic gloves–the disposable exam-glove kind–when doing public pick-up duty with my critters, and keeping an extra one in my pocket just in case of some unexpected disaster. So far so good.
I have a large-economy-size box of those disposable gloves because I seem . . . to get myself in icky situations, one way or another, somewhat regularly.^ But as a town dog owner, I go through one to four plastic pick-up bags a day. Even if we get out to the country for the long morning hurtle, the afternoon hurtle is pretty much invariably in town. That’s a lot of plastic. The local pet store, after listening to me whine about it for several years, finally found a source of biodegradable dog crap bags that seem to be genuinely biodegradable even after you’ve read the fine print . . . but it’s still a lot of plastic. I certainly use the gloves . . . but I’m under the impression the bags leave a smaller, you know, footprint.
Re Williams
As someone who milks cows on a dairy farm two days a week, I can tell you that it does wash off.
Well personally I draw AN ENORMOUS THICK LINE, LIKE MAYBE ABOUT A MEDIUM-SIZED ASTEROID WIDE, between herbivore crap and carnivore crap. I’ve spent years of my life mucking out stalls, but I think I’d have trouble working at a kennels, and I’m even a dog person. Herbivore crap is just not that big a deal.^^ I’ve come into direct personal contact with . . . well, an awful lot of horse, including scouring foal, which is pretty unpleasant, cow, which is always sloppy, goat, including scouring goatling, sheep and rabbit. There are probably others. But it never occurred to me in my barn days that washing my hands and putting my jeans and flannel shirts through the washing machine wouldn’t be enough.
PamAdams
I would argue that rolling over in one’s sleep, only to discover one’s face in a pool of kitty vomit, is worse.
Oh gods. Oh gods. I’m not laughing. I’m really not . . . RRRMBGGLK. NOT. LAUGHING.
b_twin_1
| I would argue that rolling over in one’s sleep, only to discover one’s face in a pool of kitty vomit, is worse. |
. . . given the number of people on the forum who have access to animals with copious excrement of all types I humbly suggest we don’t carry on with “mine’s bigger than yours”
::notgigglingeither:: ::NOT:: I don’t think that’s what was happening here, but you’re probably right we want to ensure that it doesn’t. But I’d differentiate between indoor pets and you farmers. I’ve worked on farms, and it’s also a different mindset. So PamAdams’ interesting experience and my exploding dog bag are in the same category, as are you and Re Williams in the same other category.
^ This includes in the garden. I scatter pelleted chicken manure by hand, because it’s quick, easy and efficient that way. The bags all say STERILIZED but I am much happier in gloves somehow. And I once had a carton of mealworms break all over the kitchen floor, and having very promptly shut up hellhounds, scrabbled (most of) the escapees out from under the corner overhang of cupboards and so on by hand. Speaking of mealworms I haven’t checked on the robin’s nest in a couple of days. . . .
^^ Which, since there’s so much more of it, is a very good thing.+
+ I don’t think I’d do too well mucking out the big cat cages at the zoo either.
Fresh Blood
So yesterday I was contemplating despairingly the likelihood that I would not make it to tonight’s opera.* Not only do I ache in every limb, including the extra leg and two extra arms I had been hitherto unaware of possessing**, but my head, throat, chest, stomach, back, hips and butt aren’t doing brilliantly well either. And I am still making antisocial noises—which while I doubt are contagious any more, I wouldn’t really want to be sitting next to me in a theatre either. And at this low point in morale and stark barrenness of future . . . I received an email.
From Niall.
Asking if I would like to ring handbells Saturday night. That two of his beginners from Tuesday were coming round and he apologised for the lack of advance warning but he could really use some help.***
Well now there’s an idea.
And so, offering up a modest little hymn to the normally evil gods of handbells, I wrote back without undue show of enthusiasm†, that I thought I probably could. And I could hear his sign of relief half a mile away from inside the mews with the windows closed and a CD of CARMEN playing.††
Frelling cowpats, I forget what hard work it is, drilling beginners. The other night doesn’t count—the only time I wasn’t knitting, Colin and I were merely giving a woman who was two-thirds of the way there already an opportunity to consolidate her skills. Tonight counts. Also, Niall had told me there would be only two of them, but all three turned up. On the assumption we will be seeing more of them, I will give them names: Olga, Enoch and Farrell. And suddenly Niall and I were outnumbered.††† It shouldn’t matter, when you’re only inculcating them one at a time‡ but somehow it does. Also, of course, although Niall and I both knew this going in, we’d be ringing non-stop the whole night. And—because this is Niall—of course we ran late. Although to be fair, as soon as you have that extra person, it takes that much longer to get the secret brainwashing electrodes fixed under everyone’s skin. And you don’t want anyone to leave without their secret brainwashing electrodes in place.‡‡
Poor Olga. I hope there’s a way to crank up the outflow on her electrodes. She needs to fall in ardent and inexplicable love with handbells really soon or she’s not going to stay the course. I so empathise. Niall has (conveniently) forgotten this, but it took me FOREVER TO LEARN ANYTHING.‡‡‡ Olga is that one in this group. Enoch is a very experienced tower ringer, and he seems to be doing the Colin thing of juggling two blue (method) lines in his head so he can ring two (hand) bells, which is a perfectly good way to begin§ but at some point he’ll have to make the leap over the bottomless abyss to handbells as handbells. But we can worry about that later. He’ll certainly make a handbell ringer if he decides he wants to. Farrell is tentatively our most interesting prospect . . . which is to say that if he keeps on like this he’ll be soaring past me in a month or two and ringing full peals of Sordid Sod’s Law Maximus by the end of the year.§§ But among other things this meant that every time we changed hapless victim to the next in the queue, Niall and I had to adjust for a different situation—much harder on Niall, who’s also trying to mind as well as ring—but unsettling for me too. You realise how much you do ring by both the tune and the rhythm when neither of these is happening—and when every time you shift your third the non-tune and non-rhythm changes too. You do occasionally get learners who are more like each other than they are unlike, and then you can settle down a bit and just grind. But that wasn’t the situation tonight. Also, particularly at the beginning, before the electrodes are working yet, you are tense with anxiety about whether your prey is having a good time. You want them to enjoy it. No, really. It cuts down on electrode wear.
The situation tonight is that I am toast. Which makes a change from the toast-free death a few days ago. . . .
* * *
* http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/LiveinHD.aspx I’m suspicious of the stability of this link. At the moment it’s showing Manon, which is what I want it to show, but it doesn’t SAY Manon, and I suspect it’s going to swim on to La Trav the minute my back is turned. But I can’t off-hand find the permanent page for the Met’s 2012 production of Massenet’s Manon Live on HD, which was tonight, and I don’t feel like wasting any more time on it. I personally feel that the Met’s web site, like so many, suffers from Glossy Pain in the Ass Syndrome, where the concentration has been entirely on how pretty everything looks and entirely NOT on how easy it is to navigate.
** Now that I’ve found the latter . . . two more hellhounds?
*** Yes, he could. Theoretically a single person can teach two beginners at a time to ring minor (six bells), but he (or she) won’t live long. The proper ratio is one beginner per two people who can ring whatever they’re trying to hammer into the third person. DING!
† You have to be careful with Niall.
†† Not at low volume. I’m also deaf with sinus whatever.
††† I also want to know how Niall got this one past Penelope at all. Penelope declared Saturday a bell-free zone years ago. Some time during the era that Niall was ringing eight or nine times a week. I imagine he got it past her because of the festival of delight Tuesday was—Penelope is not hard-hearted, she just feels there is more to life than (whisper it) bells—but the truth may be that Penelope is not herself from Happy Grandmother Hormones. Their youngest, and the only one who lives locally, produced her first offspring a fortnight ago, and Penelope is doting. She showed me photos tonight: very high on the awwwww goodgy goodgy scale. You don’t even have to be her grandmother to appreciate this.
‡ We did ring some plain hunt on eight, which was somewhat exciting. And Niall, because he is Niall, threw us into Grandsire Triples to finish—eight bells, but the treble and the two only plain hunt, and the eight is tenor-behind, so any ringer who can ring it in the tower only has to remember to go DING in last place with that other blasted bell every row. This leaves the 3-4 and the 5-6 to do all the death-defying stuff. Whimper.
‡‡ You don’t think anyone rings methods on handbells just because they enjoy it, do you?
‡‡‡ Speaking of the hard graft of breaking down, I mean training, beginners.
§ Even if it makes people like me who don’t have that option gnash their teeth.
§§ I am bracing myself to hate him which will be rather too bad. When we broke for tea tonight we all stood up from our fairy-ring of hard, mentally stimulating^ chairs and went to the sitting-room end of the sitting room. There is overstuffed furniture for four, the hard chairs, and plenty of floor. I automatically sit on the floor. I slightly tend to sit on floors anyway, depending on circumstances, and I’ve been sitting on Niall’s floor during tea breaks for handbells for a long time. I don’t think about it any more. And tonight I could use the change of position to give different aches and pains a chance to shine. Farrell said, I thought only dancers did that—choose to sit on the floor. (He’s a dancer.) I didn’t want to get into the aches and pains—it’s pretty obvious I have the lurgy^^, but he’s also about one-third my age^^^, and I don’t want to scare him. So I said (truthfully) that I’m a fidget. He grinned. Yes, that’s right, he said. Dancing is just organising how you fidget.
^ Stop that sniggering
^^ I posted to Facebook last night that I sounded like James Earl Jones with laryngitis. No. Wrong. I sound like Lurch.
^^^ Oh those snappy young neurons. If I’d learnt change-ringing on handbells at twenty . . . I still wouldn’t have been able to do it because this brain is not the right shape.
Death on Toast
. . . and hold the toast. I can’t immediately remember when I’ve been quite this ill* . . . and as I was whinging last night, I don’t actually get these aggravated head cold/flu/upper respiratory evil things very often, and I just had one recently. And I think I’d had one fairly recently before that. One of the curious, ahem, benefits of ME is that it tends to be a jealous god and doesn’t want you consorting with other, vulgar ailments. I wish I thought this meant I was going to be shut of the ME at last, but a case of Taittinger’s against a case of plastic dog crap bags says it doesn’t work like that.
There was minimal hellhound hurtling today. On some earlier occasion of haplessly abbreviated hurtling Diane in MN remarked that it was very nice when puppies grew up and became dogs. Yes. If I’d had to try to hurtle two hours today . . . I wouldn’t have come back.**
Unfortunately there was also abbreviated sofa lying. I didn’t get down to the mews till very late*** and then I tried to . . . ahem . . . do some work. Silly me. But I’ve said here before that it’s disconcerting† how little effect my physical and mental state have on my writing: if I’m in a bad way all that happens is that I become very slow. The story is the story. It’s like you have x miles to cover: you can choose to walk or to run††, but the journey from y to z doesn’t change.
But the handbell seminar was tonight and I was going to go if I had to borrow a sack trolley so Niall could wheel me from the car park.††† When has there ever been a proper, organised education-day-by-the-local-guild handbell seminar? I was even going as a helper. I’m generally in the peon category at ringing events.
So I was all excited. Or as excited as I could presently manage.
Um.
Fortunately I had brought my knitting with me.‡
The seminar was perhaps not as beautifully and thoughtfully organised as it might have been—?‡‡ I may have expressed myself with some force on the drive home to Niall about this. The other thing is . . . if you’re going to learn handbells, you have to ring frequently and at length. This whole show will have been for nothing if there’s no follow up for any of the beginners who’d like to give it a proper shot to find a group that will drill their tiny brains out, which is what they need.
. . . I’m sure there’s something else I could talk about. But I can’t stay in this chair any longer. You’ll excuse me if tonight’s post is a trifle compact.
* * *
* Well, in my current state of unhealth I can’t remember anything much. Give me a minute, I can probably come up with my name . . . Chaos? Darkness?
** And hellhounds could perform the Lassie ploy and guide the ambulance crew to my motionless and raspy-breathing body.
*** Last night was epic. Not in a good way.
† Not to say downright humiliating
†† Or to crawl, moaning
††† Peter says he nearly tried to me forbid to go. This would not have gone over well. Even if he was right, which he probably was. I tried not to breathe on anyone. Niall is getting over his lurgy. Whimper.
‡ I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I am not merely working on the second leg warmer, but that I cast on and immediately started ribbing—not only without having to redo the first few rows about forty-seven times, but without even thinking about it. I cast on and started knitting. Yaaay. Progress.
‡‡ Urgle yurgle gleep arrrrgh. Colin and I were in a group with four helpers and two learners—and only three sets of bells. So three of us were always sitting out. Er. Why? Niall was in a group with three learners and two helpers . . . and he said he could have used more help. Colin, who is a forceful sort of fellow, after the tea break, went off and fossicked for an extra set of bells for the leftover three of us in our group. He found three pair of buckets . . . I’m not sure they even count as handbells: I think you could hang them in a tower with a sally. But they were better than nothing. I mean, I’m happy to knit, but if I was just going to knit I could have stayed home.
Also, handbell ringers—remember I’m talking about change ringing on handbells, not tunes—are not thick on the ground. To arrange something with twenty or thirty people attending, and enough helpers to give all the learners a chance, meant that some of these people were coming from a considerable distance. But the entire evening was scheduled for only an hour and a half—and we spent a good twenty minutes milling around having vague awkward conversations with people we thought we half knew^ at the beginning and another fifteen minutes for the tea break.
At least I had brought my knitting.^^
^ Okay, I’m projecting. I’m not good at milling, even when I’m healthy. And I was happy to chat with a few of the people I did know. But we only had an hour and a half.
^^ I am already—after only slightly more than a year with needles, and still not having finished anything yet—wondering how I managed before I had knitting to take with me. I’ve always had a book with me everywhere, but reading really is anti-social. I couldn’t have pulled my book out tonight. But I could perfectly well (well, I think I could perfectly well) pull out my knitting, and prove that I’m still paying attention by making the occasional comment. (You HAVE to count! You ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY HAVE to count your places when you ring handbells!!) I have the occasional backwards advantage as a beginner teacher, in that I’m not such great shakes that I don’t remember with painful clarity what it’s like learning your first appalling method on handbells. (YOU MUST COUNT. I don’t care what any of these hot guys are telling you. YOU. MUST. COUNT. YOUR. PLACES.)