I haven’t written anything for a while. But we did something noteworthy tonight, so I need to record it.

We had 4 people tonight, who are working on a quarter peal of bob major. Jane, Randy, Andrew, and Maggie. So we started the evening with a long length touch of that method. We rang a 560 change method tonight, and did it on the first attempt, which I call a win! Not a quarter peal, yet. But we are creeping up on that target.

While looking for a new method to ring, Jane suggested we try either Little Bob, or St. Clements College Bob. Both look fairly straightforward, but while looking through iAgrams we stumbled upon a method named Little Little Little Little Penultimus Place. Looking through the blue line for this method, it looked very strange – the treble never gets to 8th place, but rather makes places at 7, causing the bell in the 8th place to stay there for four blows.

“Shall we try this?”

“Sure, why not?”

As we were ringing, we heard familiar melodies, because this seems to be a slightly truncated version of Bob Major. So after three or four attempts, we actually were able to ring this new method!

The most curious fact about this method seems to be that, you change positions when the treble is making 7ths, but other than that you just continually plain hunt. There is no dodging! So, for example, Randy was ringing 3-4, where he started in the 3-4 position. The 3 bell is the bell that makes 8ths in the first lead, which puts him into the 2-3 position. From there, he just rings that 2-3 position, with no dodges or anything else special, until the 4 bell makes long 8ths, at which point he is back in the 3-4 position until it comes back to rounds.

The same is true for 5-6 and 7-8. The same is NOT true for the trebles. But of course, the trebles change position at every lead end in Bob Major, and in LLLLPLP (to use initials!) the same is true, though the change comes when the treble is making 7ths.

It was a fun night of ringing, and getting to learn a little bit of a new method.