There were three of us today, Andrew, Jane, Randy. So we rang minor.

We started with a plain course of St. Clements College Bob, with Andrew on the trebles, Jane on 3/4, and Randy on the tenors. This should have been easy, but someone got their bells crossed, and we crashed on the last lead. Start over? Or start from the last lead? We decided to start over (it’s short!), and got it right on the second attempt.

Let’s try a touch of that method! We tried for a while, but that arrangement of bells was not working for us. So Randy took the trebles, Andrew took 3/4, and Jane took the tenors. This worked better, but it still took us more than one attempt to get it right. But we did, and did it at a fairly quick pace, with fairly decent striking. It felt good.

Randy had a commitment and needed to leave early, and so we finished with a speed run of Plain Bob. We decided to do a silent touch, with a single at the end to double the length of the method. We had the same pairs as for our touch of St. Clements College Bob, and rang this very nicely as well.

And then we adjourned. A nice hour of ringing.

We had 4 people today, Andrew, Jane, Maggie, Randy, so rang major. Jane just received her booster for Covid-19, and so was a bit fuzzy-headed today, so we kept things short.

We started with a plain course of St. Clements College Bob, in the usual configuration of Andrew on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. Maybe the ringing wouldn’t win any awards, but we did finish on the first attempt! Which felt very nice.

We then moved to Little Bob in the same configuration. This oddly took more work! On the third failed attempt, we decided to start at the beginning of the penultimate lead so that we could practice the ending a few times. After what felt like forever (but was in fact probably 10 minutes), we were able to ring a plain course of Little Bob.

What next? A splice, of course. We spliced Plain Bob and Little Bob, with Andrew conducting (though Jane came up with what he would call). Plain, Little, Plain, Bob, repeat until it comes around. This also took a few attempts, but we were able to ring it at the end.

We finished with a speed run of Plain Bob, with Maggie on the trebles, Randy on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Andrew on the tenors. Again, we would not have won any striking contests. But we rang it on the first attempt.

And then we went home.

Thankfully we are in Southern California. So while it is chilly, we can still ring outdoors and keep separated. But that may change in the coming weeks!

It has been a while since I have rung bells. I believe others have rung while I was out, but I haven’t gotten any news about what they have done. So I will continue to report only on what I have rung.

We had 4 people today, Andrew, Jane, Maggie, and Randy. So we rang major (of course!). We started with a plain course of Plain Bob, with Andrew on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. We had to decide if we could actually remember this stuff! It went well, and we rang without error a full plain course of Plain Bob Major. A nice start!

We next rang St Clements College Bob in the same positions as above. This took us a while – 3 or 4 attempts before we got it right. The first attempt crashed in the 3rd lead, and we kept getting farther and farther along. At one point, we started at the end of the last lead just to remind ourselves how it all finished. And after that, we rang a full plain course of St Clements College Bob.

So next we needed to ring a splice, with Andrew conducting (apparently he did this while I was away, with Minor, but I don’t have the details). We started with a splice of Plain Bob and Little Bob. But it became quickly apparent that Randy had not rung the tenors on Little Bob in quite a while, if ever! So we switched pairs, with Jane ringing the tenors and Randy moving to 5/6. We decided that we really needed to remember Little Bob all by itself, and so rang this (without splicing Plain Bob) until we got it right. Which took longer than I would have liked! But we did finally get it.

At that point, it was time to quit, and so we did our usual speed run of Plain Bob Major, with Maggie ringing the trebles, Andrew on 3/4, Randy on 5/6, and Jane on the tenors. It was very sloppy, but we never actually lost our place, and finished at the right place. I call that a result!

All in all, a good day of ringing, after more than a month off!