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Ice This
Okay, what is this?
I mean, I know what it is. It’s ice. It’s a very strange ice self-sculpture as discovered in my rain gauge this morning. I’ve been trying to remember if there’s been any weird ice effects before this; we’ve been having hard frosts pretty much every night for a week or so I think—certainly last night and the night before. And we’ve had lots of hard frosts all winter long.
But yesterday was positively warm, so anything that might have happened the night before that would have melted. I also did some gardening yesterday and I’m pretty sure I would have noticed gnomish* water. But is there some inscrutable Memory of Water going on here?
All the ice crystals held hands/tentacles/tendrils/teenyweeny subatomic appendages when they melted yesterday and last night as they hardened up again since they were all friends now they started building a cheerleader pyramid? 
I haven’t dumped the rain gauge out since falling lake over the weekend—maybe it has something to do with the drastic slope of the gauge? Beats the heck out of me. Maybe I’ll send it to the New Scientist and ask them. They like stuff like this.
And it was a nightmare to photograph. I must have taken two dozen photos** and they’re all out of focus.*** These are merely less out of focus than the others. My camera has these little orange squares that tell you what it’s going to focus on . . . wrong. It can’t stand shiny translucent ice, so it just ducks around the orange squares and finds a nice daphne or plant pot or dead thing to focus on.
I emailed Blondel last night and said that I’d lost about half of this week to ME, that I’d just tried singing for the first time since about Thursday and . . . oh dear. That I still wanted to come for my lesson† but not to expect much. He emailed back that he was sure we could ‘make good use of the time’†† if I was feeling up to it.
Right at the moment about ninety percent of what I learn about singing every week happens in that single hour in Blondel’s tiny spare-bedroom studio. The ten percent is just me at home picking out the melody on the piano with one finger, or urgently re-re-listening to selected youtube tracks.††† I am hoping that eventually I can do some of that what-needs-supporting, where-it’s-tight stuff for myself, but at the moment all I ever seem to do at home—aside from trying to learn the frelling tune‡—is recognise that the noise I’m making is more good or less good‡‡ and beyond that it’s all unfathomable . . . squeaking.‡‡‡
Sigh.
I had forgotten more than I had learnt since last lesson § but at the end Blondel still said, I’ll have a new song for you next week. Your coloratura is really very good,§§ I’ll look for something else with coloratura in it.
Squeak.
* * *
* Gnomish: to do with gnomes. Yes, I want to say gnomic but that’s about aphorisms. Hmm. Aphoristic water. Woo ooh.
** I looove my digital camera. It took a little while. I was last on the block. I might still be last on the block without a digital camera except that Peter bought me one because he thought I was being silly about them. Silly? Me?
Now who’s going to fix my attitude toward my little videocam? Yup. I have one. Poor thing. It sure has stamina. It’s been buried in a heap of early draft manuscripts for months. I finally fished it out about a week ago and gave it a charge, expecting it to tell me that it had eaten itself and all its software, the way rechargeables do if they aren’t. Nope. Still working. So then I put it on its bendy feet, pointed it at the piano, and sang the lullaby from PEGASUS in front of it.
BIG MISTAKE.
The bottom of a pile of early draft manuscript isn’t nearly far enough away. Not in the same county.
*** And sometimes I don’t love my digital camera quite so much.
† Have I told you that my fourteen-year-old car passed his road inspection first go? That they couldn’t even find anything wrong? Evidently there hadn’t been a hard frost recently when they went to unlock the doors.
†† Good use of the time. Sigh. I might as well be ringing Cambridge and singing and composing the second parts of lullabies^ for all the forward I’m getting on PEG II. I’m getting tired of that blank screen. This happens to me; in itself it’s not a big deal; after the fairies^^^ finish moving the furniture around they’ll let me back in the house again. Meanwhile . . . well, if I miss getting it turned in on time, you’ll just have to wonder/put off reading PEG I^^^^ a little longer.
^ Did I tell you Peter wrote me a second verse? With variants. In case I want the stress on a different part of a line, he said. Golly. We’re collaborating more on this than we ever have for ELEMENTALS.
^^ Maybe I should take up knitting.
^^^ Or possibly gnomes
^^^^ Which of course you’ve already bought
††† Now that I’m beginning to learn it a little, Alfred Deller’s performance of Purcell’s Evening Hymn is much. Too. Slow.
‡ And all those horrible where-you-come-ins
‡‡ Or possibly more bad or less bad
‡‡‡ I have the video to prove it
§ SIGH
§§ Remember that this is teacherspeak and relative. It’s true that given the general level of direness my coloratura is better than you’d expect.
Cambridge
I rang Cambridge last night.* My first surprise method, that holy of holies and scary of scaries.
Well. A little bit of Cambridge. But even that is a substantial miracle, like . . . managing to sing for Oisin tomorrow afternoon, supposing I do. It was also an excellent example of Wild Robert at his maddest. I think I wasn’t blogging yet when he pitched me into Stedman after I’d been ringing about a year and a half and could just about struggle through bob doubles on a good day. Stedman was like yanking the toddler off her tricycle and entering her in the Tour de France. Gah. However, the grind mechanism was engaged and I did, in fact, learn Stedman. Grind, grind, grind. Eventually.
Ditherington has been going through a bad patch for practise night ringers and Wild Robert clearly had a rush of blood to the head when there were more ringers than bells last night . . . and the fact that only three of them could ring Cambridge—himself, Niall, and Ditherington’s fearless tower captain Marilyn—he waved airily aside, and told Michelle and me to learn the line. Now. Right then. This moment. When we weren’t ringing little stuff for the learners, that is. GAH. Do you know how long learning a complex line takes?** Gerald, it must be said, should have been learning the line, but he is one of these people—all occupations have them***—who fancies himself a good deal more competent than he is, and I only mention it because his unique contribution makes our eventual semi-success that much more heroic. We got through about half of it, and since the standard means of learning surprise† is by individual lead, of which Cambridge minor has five, we obviously all get medals.
The other interesting†† thing that happened last night is that I had to call some bob doubles. You hardliners who actually read these posts when they’re about bell ringing may recall that Wild Robert informed me, like a clap on the ear, about a fortnight ago that I was to call a touch of Grandsire. I did this successfully, to everyone’s amazement††† . . . but I could do it because for this particular touch you the conductor, by the calls you make, are calling yourself through a very easy sub-pattern within the entire method. The other ringers are performing the sweaty bits. Last night Wild Robert, grinning maleficently as he snatched my diagram book out of my hands, open, as it was, to Cambridge, stated that for my next trick I would call a touch of bob doubles. Oh, I said warily. I’ve been reading up, you know‡, and I ventured a remark about having perhaps some clue about the bob doubles equivalent of that Grandsire touch the other week. No, no, said Wild Robert, grinning even more maleficently, Denis gets to ring that bell. You have to call it from an affected bell . . . in other words I would be ringing all the sweaty bits and trying to remember to shout BOB at the correct intervals. And learn Cambridge in my spare time.
I admit that my calling was not quite the clean victorious sweep that it was for the easier Grandsire touch. But we got through and I shouted BOB and . . . and I can learn this. I really can. I understood what I was supposed to be doing—I understood the concept. How did this happen? It’s a bit like realising a few months ago that I was, in fact, going to make it to ringing surprise—how did that happen? And while I have thought that I ought to learn to call something, I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect with any enthusiasm. So the second thing about the experience is that . . . calling is actually kind of cool. So, yeah, okay, I’d like to learn to call a few touches. . . .‡‡
I blasted out of bed this morning still slightly overheated (morally anyway) by last night’s unexpected manifestations of ability. Which doubtless explains why today has been one long downhill skid. Sigh. However it began at the beginning of the month with me remembering that Wolfgang’s annual road test is due in February and dutifully booking in at the garage . . . who couldn’t fit us in till tomorrow. Arrgh. ‡‡‡ And then Peter also wanted to go visit Luke § and there was some backing and forthing about this and it turned out to suit them if he went up for evening visiting hours today, and comes back tomorrow. Which left me dealing with Wolfgang. In the sluicing rain—usually I use either picking up or dropping off Wolfgang as an excuse to hurtle hellhounds in the other direction. And because I don’t wake up anything like early enough to get him out there tomorrow morning for 7:30§§ I was going to take him in tonight. Okay, I thought, we can hurtle back in time to let Colin and Niall into the cottage for handbells at five, handbells at 5 o’clock being my usual Thursday excitement . . . until I noticed that we were ringing at four and at Niall’s house, which is about a twenty-minute walk from here . . . and did I mention the rain?
And then we couldn’t ring anything. Toward the end of our two hours of self-immolation Niall looked at the other two of us and said, We aren’t usually this bad, are we? Noooooo. Sometimes we get through entire minutes without going, Crash! Frell! Sorry!
And have I told you we’re trying to learn Cambridge?
* * *
*Translation: I won the lottery. I was crowned Queen of England. They just gave me the Nobel Prize for Literature. I discovered the Elixir of Happy Creative Middle Age that Lasts Longer Than a Few Decades.^ I found the answer for world peace.^^
^ See previous blog posts for remarks about how old is better.
^^ It was behind the sofa.
** Hint: it took me months to learn Stedman. Although that was my first diabolical method, and nothing can be quite that diabolical again. It’s like learning to ring inside for the first time. You will never learn it and furthermore it is going to kill you. And then it doesn’t. Oh.
*** I find the level of self-delusion rather interesting. Lots of people think they’re, oh, say, better, ahem, writers than they are. But bad writing does not literally go CLANK.
† Which includes knowing in advance so you can have studied the line before you came to practise
†† I am so living in interesting times
††† And then Niall the Ratbag made me do it again at New Arcadia
‡ Steve Colman, The Bob Caller’s Companion, http://www.ringingbooks.co.uk/ No self-respecting Deputy Ringing Master would be without.
‡‡ WHAT DID I JUST SAY????
‡‡‡ Note to self: next year remember in January.
§ No real change. Please keep those candles burning.
§§ AAAAAAAUGH
Short* NASTY Monday
I got up what passes in my case for betimes today because I was having an early lunch with Penelope and wanted to have hellhounds well hurtled beforehand.
Except that it was raining. Not just raining: RAINING. Rain on a mission to dissolve planet Earth and leave a large muddy spreading splodge in the solar system.**
While I was waiting for either a break in the downpour or the void to open at my feet when both the road and the ground underneath were washed away*** I discovered that I had a dead phone. I had a dead phone because a hellhound had chewed through one of the wires.
Eighteen kinds of panic at this point. He’s eating WIRES???? I know who it is—Darkness, usually my better behaved, more mature hellhound. He does get into random acts of mastication occasionally.† He actually chewed the spines off a couple of books, and the fact that he’s still alive since I discovered this proves what a soft option I really am. I’d caught him having a go at the phone wire a few weeks ago, lectured him SEVERELY and, as I thought, tidied the wire out of reach. But tidied is not really a concept that applies to the cottage and obviously . . . it didn’t stay where it was put. Very like the hellhounds themselves.
BUT . . . HE’S EATING WIRES?!?
We finally got out on our walk. What with rain, wind and appropriate headgear I don’t hear too well and at one point we were slopping along a farm track and I whirled around, convinced that we were about to be run down by one of those tractors with tyres so tall the driver wouldn’t be able to see a woman and two hellhounds down at ground level, especially in this weather . . . and I dropped one of my pink suede gloves and TROD on it.††
It’s barely worth mentioning that the hellhounds shook themselves violently the moment we got indoors again.††† This is not really the best means by which to have your house plants misted.‡ One of the reasons the carpets don’t get hoovered often enough is because I spend so much time mopping the kitchen floor. And walls. And cabinet fronts. And snarling.‡‡
Lunch was a bright spot. Obviously I was under Penelope’s protective aegis for the duration.
And then back to RATPEGASUSBAG. Maybe I’ll just email everybody the ending. You don’t really need all the details, do you?
And because I haven’t had a good practise ring in long enough to feel my fragile grip on [name any method here] slipping I decided I was going to go to Colin’s tower practise tonight. And Niall was even going to come along quietly.‡‡ I was already standing out at the end of the long mews driveway wondering what was taking Niall so long when there was a small breathless voice behind me and Peter had come pelting down the same long driveway to tell me that Niall had just rung to say that Colin had just rung to say that they couldn’t start practise till eight.
So I frelling cancelled. EXTENSIVE AND CREATIVE RUDE GESTURES HERE. I know I don’t go to bed till most people are thinking about getting up, but most of that late time is spent doing stuff. RATPEG or blog or something torturous with the piano, and I don’t dare be out too late or my brain refuses to go back to work. It’s late! it says. I’m not supposed to have to work this late! I’ll have the union on you! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!
And speaking of something tortuous with the piano, I have a voice lesson tomorrow. I haven’t got Evening Hymn anything like learnt, I’ve been so busy trying to learn the wretched thing I’ve not got any further on It Was a Lover AND I committed the CARDINAL ERROR of taping myself singing last night. JEEEEEZUM. What the hell was I thinking of?
* * *
* FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL I AM SPENDING WAAAAY TOO MUCH TIME ON THE BLOG STILL AGAIN ETERNALLY ETC ARRRRGH.
** In all the dystopian returning-to-a-changed-Earth-after-years/generations/centuries SF I’ve read I don’t recall anyone exploiting the large muddy spreading splodge denouement.
*** Hey! Stop that! I have roses to plant!
† Although it was Chaos—I’m sure I’ve told you this story, but it remains vividly etched in my mind—who bit through the cable plugging my electric keyboard into the wall at the cottage. UNGLEBLARG GLURP. Cheez. I was at my desk, and there was this funny sharp alarming noise, and . . . there was a half-grown hellpuppy smiling at me with the two halves of the severed cable lying over his paws. Why he didn’t electrocute himself I have no idea.
†† It’s actually not ruined. I think. It’s pretty handsomely waterproofed or I wouldn’t be wearing it in this weather in the first place, and the mud is cracking nicely, like Death Valley in August. I think it’s going to brush off. What is really miraculous however is that . . . this being a farm track and all . . . it seems to have fallen in honest mud rather than slurry.
Oh, and no, there was no tractor.
††† Raincoats have no effect on this behaviour. They still shake, and they still irrigate the vicinity.
‡ Maybe the reason I’ve still got a little of a certain three-week-old bouquet left is because it is regularly misted by hellhounds.
‡‡ Relatively quietly. He did tell me that Titus’ wife loves dogs and does not love handbells, that he had told her my flimsy excuse for declining Saturday morning handbells and her response was that if I wanted to bring the hellhounds some Saturday morning she would walk them while I rang bells. I asked Niall how large she is and if she has shoulders like a football player. I am not sure I was satisfied with his answer.
Semi-frozen Sunday
I’m doing my wha’? Huh? on five hours’ sleep today. Sigh. Saturday night has lately become the night I go to bed early because I have to crawl out early for service ring on Sunday . . . good so far . . . and then get overinvolved in the books that just happen to have come to bed with me. There tend to be rather a lot of these.* And since it’s early and I’m still feeling at least half-awake and half-clever I figure I’ll tackle something a bit more substantial than usual and . . . **
Wha’? Huh?***
A surprising amount of this weekend has been spent in the garden despite snow, sleet and freezing rain.† Friday night Peter was playing bridge so we were already locked in at the cottage when the temperature plunged; last night I had the full-bore ice-in-the-mechanism†† car-doors-won’t-open-car-doors-won’t-shut thing when hellhounds and I went back to the cottage from the mews. But the days themselves are making coy little dashes at spring between cloudbursts; I even got up to Third House today to view the situation, which comes down basically to either sprouting or dead. Surprising numbers of both of these.††† But between winter and Atlas—who did a major jungle-bashing for me last autumn—and my own creeping determination to have only plants I like in my garden(s) no matter how well this or that great ugly thug is doing—great ugly thugs have their uses, but as soon as I start running out of room their days are numbered—I HAVE SOME VERY NICE EMPTY EARTH. It won’t last. Every time I hit another bump in the PEGASUS road I go on line and order more plants.
* * *
* Every fortnight or so I have a clear-off before the bed-frame breaks.^ You’d think that changing the sheets would force me to grapple with the problem, but not at all. I just put the books, magazines and other people’s manuscripts^^ in tidy^^^ piles on the floor which gives me somewhere off the floor to put the bedding.
^ Having your attic floor reinforced for carrying your and your husband’s professional backlist is one thing. Having your bed-frame reinforced because you are a cheap literary slut+ seems to me a fortification too far.
+ Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton live in separate houses too. Pass it on. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/feb/06/helena-bonham-carter-interview . . . ‘There’s a snoring issue’ . . .
^^ Yes. Very occasionally.
^^^ Sic. So they don’t fall over and let the pillows tumble onto the not-very-recently-hoovered carpet.
** Last night along with the predictable homeopathic quest for my latest gnomic case I decided to have a look at a short easy touch for plain bob doubles. I am a sad, sick person. At least I could be resisting more. I think Vicky or Niall put something in my beer after making me Deputy Ringing Master.
We had another bad turn-out on Friday and spent most of the evening ringing stuff for beginners—although at the end there were just enough people for Niall to ask me to do my Grandsire-calling trick again. We had a beginner on the tenor, which as a result wandered rather, and the treble wandered a bit too . . . aaaugh. No, it’s okay, I got through, but having an AWOL bell going CRUNCH in your ear and then having the treble disappear . . . when you call depends on where the treble is. . . . I remind myself that the truly useful Deputy Ringing Master can soldier on through anything.
After practise Niall came up to me, eyes glinting. He’s never to be trusted anyway, but he’s worse when his eyes are glinting. He said, Titus told me to tell you that you’d be welcome to come ring handbells at his house on Saturdays. I’m going tomorrow. I could give you a ride.
I looked at Niall. That’s nice, I said. Please thank him for me. How far away is Titus?
Oh, said Niall airily. He’s on the way to Frellingham.
Define on the way, I said. Frellingham is most of an hour from here. What time do you ring?^
Oh . . . said Niall, attempting further airiness. Maybe . . . around ten.
TEN O’CLOCK? I said, thinking of the mornings I am barely out of bed at ten. So you leave around NINE? I have hellhounds I have to hurtle first.
But you could do Saturday morning at ten? said Niall, sensing an opening. I’ll see if I can get Titus and Tom to come here some time.
ARRRGH, I said, poised to flee down the ladder . . . but not quite. Hey, I said, you wouldn’t like to come (tower) ringing Monday to Colin’s practise, would you?^^
Niall looks at me. I look at him. Possibly, he says, still looking at me.
Some Saturday morning in my near future, I predict, is doomed.
^ You’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t even be asking.
^^ Grind only works when you get to grind. I want to grind at Grandsire Triples, which means there have to be eight bells, five other inside ringers and a treble and a tenor-behind, none of which—except the bells themselves—have prevailed recently at New Arcadia.
*** We had a fairly grim turnout for service ring today too. Niall offered me call changes to conduct but I decided this was dangerous on a Sunday morning. I need more practise calling call changes. Kill me. Please.
† COME ON, GUYS, YOU WEATHER GOD RATBAGS, LIGHTEN UP, WILL YOU?
†† Have I mentioned that the locks on both front doors now have an interesting charcoal-and-bronze streaked patina from being melted open with matches?
††† I want to know what’s gone wrong in the greenhouse though. The geraniums, nemesias, begonias and chocolate cosmos are all croaked. I’ve got a couple of snapdragons left—but snapdragons are perverse: I have at least one each still alive outdoors at the cottage and Third House which is frankly not possible—and two frothy little New Zealand clematis, but mostly the stuff that’s come through is the stuff that is relatively borderline anyway. Tipsy Imperial Concubine looks pretty happy . . . and I have a daylily that is getting ready to flower. It was sharing pot-space with a geranium, now defunct, but I’m afraid if I put it outdoors now the shock will make it cry. Although speaking of crying if my two year old wisteria is an ex-parrot I am going to blacken my face and rend my garments. It does not look at all sappy and burgeoning. Sigh. The flipping plant is supposed to be hardy, it’s the sudden last-minute May frosts that take out the flowers. At the old house, which had a killer wisteria, we had flowers about one year in three. Arrrgh.
Life was simpler in Maine, where I had gigantic sculptural boulders in the back garden, a fabulous sugar maple that went flame-red in autumn in the front garden, a stream that went past the porch, and huge overgrown lilac bushes everywhere.
The good news however is that the heeled-in roses from last autumn all look dormant as opposed to deceased. The soil at present is that delightful combination of squishy and still frozen, so I’m not planning on a huge lot of planting right away, but soon. . . .
Wet Thursday
Okay, we are not coming from the best place I’ve ever been in terms of morale and achievement. It took me FOUR HOURS to write two paragraphs of PEG II today. Mind you, they were pretty interesting paragraphs, once I got them nailed to the page so they couldn’t escape.* But it was not a happy four hours and this has cast a pall.
Also it’s been tipping down rain most of the day, to hellhounds’ and my lasting unjoy and antidelight. At least the garden(s) got watered; I have been noticing the last few days with something like shock that some things are beginning to try and grow, despite the fact that we’re still getting down below freezing about one night in three, and things that grow tend to need water. Yesterday I was staring at the plants in pots on my front steps at the cottage and muttering, I object to using watering-cans outdoors in February.** Feh.
Handbells this evening. Hellhounds and I arrived back at the cottage only moments before Niall; I’d been waiting for the rain to let up so we could walk. Ha. Eventually we walked anyway, so I was still in mid-towelling-off stage when Niall knocked on the door.
So, how did you enjoy handbells on Tuesday? said Niall.
Wet dog, I said briefly, still towelling.
You need to ring more bob major, said Niall.
I need dry socks, I said.
You did really well ringing the trebles, said Niall.
And the floor is a lake, I said.
The trebles are really hard, and your striking was very good***, said Niall.
I HAVEN’T GOT TIME TO RING HANDBELLS MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK, I said, hanging wet socks and dog towels over the Aga railing.
You should come again, said Niall, I know you’ll pick up major† really quickly.
Fortunately Colin arrived at this opportune moment.†† And we wasted some time talking about conducting. Grrrrraaaaaugggh. . . .
* * *
* The image that comes to me involves cats, cat carriers, and vets. In a relatively low-cat existence, I’ve nonetheless had some very exciting times in situations involving cats, cat carriers, and vets.
** Indoors, of course, I spend half my life carrying watering-cans around. There are afternoons when I’m running late^ when hellhounds and I walk back to the cottage, stay just long enough for me to water the plants^^ and then turn around and go back to the mews.
Nontraditional use of small heavy lamp. Originally I had the hippeastrum turned around the other way, so the lamp was merely propping it. But the second stem has been growing over-enthusiastically toward the light, so I figured I’d better turn it around. Which meant bondage.
I am going to be in so much trouble when the roots on these get going. 
Those of you with gardens and too many plants making a mess on your window sills will know the way that however many pots you have, of all sizes, shapes and materials, the one(s) you want will have moved to Montana when you weren’t looking. Unless you live in Montana, in which case they will have moved to Sri Lanka. This is what there was.
And these too.
Aren’t these pretty glasses? I love the swirl through the stem. 
But what the hell do you do with them? They’re for champagne, and I realise that if you give grand parties where there are lots of ladies in wasp-waisted dresses and crimson lipstick and gentlemen with slicked-back hair and dubious moustaches and the champagne flows like the rain in Hampshire flat glasses are probably elegant and fashionable. But those of us who nurse our one or two glasses of champagne over the courses of long evenings at our computers^^^, want flutes.# I float broken-off flowers and pruning accidents in these glasses occasionally, or pot pourri, which is to say handfuls of petals from my garden. ## But I HOPE we’re getting late enough in the season that when these flower-stalks start diving over the brims I can just prop them against the windows### without coming downstairs to hyacinthicles some morning after a cold night.
^ ie most afternoons
^^ tripping frequently over hellhounds, who have taken up locations in the middle of the floor the better to glare at me since they want me to come upstairs and sit down at my desk so they can lie in their favourite bed in my office.
^^^ SIGH
# Cheap flutes. So if we break one, we’re only crying over the champagne.
## They will dry out nicely if you remember to stir them with a finger every time you walk past
### And I wonder why my windows are so smudgy
*** Horsemucky, just by the way. My striking was not good. What was remarkable, however, was that while I was chiefly being dragged through by the other ringers, I did have some concept of the shape of the pattern and what was happening. This is bad. This means I want to do it again.
† Major is eight bells, remember. The point about Niall’s Tuesdays is that there are enough people—enough people who know what they’re doing^—that we can ring major. Colin, Niall and I on Thursdays can only ring minor because there’s only three of us, and so six bells.
^ Especially Fred. Fred is a Legend in His Own Time. Fred would be scary if he weren’t so nice.
†† My neighbours across the road often return from somewhere while our Thursday evening handbells are going on. I never draw the sitting-room curtains—only my across-the-road neighbours could see in anyway, their house is very well set back and the cottage’s ground floor is a long half-stair up from road level. If they can see us at all through the heavy windowsill foliage, they will see three heads bent forward in a kind of circle, nearly motionless and clearly intent. They might conceivably see the occasional flash of a raised bell. It amuses me to imagine what they might surmise we’re up to. . . .
