I missed writing last week. We did ring, but I don’t have much recollection of what exactly we did, and in order to not confuse things, I am just going to skip last week.

We had 4 today, so rang a lot of major. For the entire session, we had Randy on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Andrew on the tenors.

We started with St Clements College Bob, just to remind ourselves how to ring that. We rang a plain course, and while we bobbled slightly, we got through the entire method in the first go. Which felt like a result.

Next, Jane had Andrew call a short touch of Plain Bob, calling 4 bobs at “wrong, home, wrong, home”. We rang that on the first attempt as well, which (if my calculations are correct) is a 256 change method. Not quite a quarter peal! But we’re getting close. Jane is grooming Andrew to call his first quarter, and this was the next step.

The step after that was to attempt another touch. Jane suggested that Andrew call it again, this time calling bobs at “wrong, home, wrong, wrong, home, wrong, wrong, home, wrong”. We could NOT get this for some reason. I don’t think we made it to the second bob. And through no one’s fault – we all kept missing bells. You would think we had never rung before! I’m glad we didn’t have an audience.

To close the session, Jane introduced us to a new method she had just learned about, called “Original”. This is an odd method, in that bobs can be called anywhere, not just when the treble is on the front. We decided to allow each person to call a bob at their leisure, in order of Randy, Maggie, Jane, Andrew. Of course, we didn’t get very far the first time, but by the third or fourth attempt, we were making progress! We didn’t have anything in mind other than trying this, so there is no guarantee that what we rang was true. But it had the desired effect, and stretched our minds. Which was the whole point.

A fun afternoon!

We had three people today, Andrew, Jane, and Randy. So we rang a lot of minor. (When is someone going to learn how to track 4 positions and ring 4 in hand so we can ring major with just three? Haha.)

We decided to start with a touch of spicing Little Bob and Plain Bob. Randy rang the trebles, Andrew had 3/4, and Jane was on the tenors. Jane decided that Andrew should call the changes, which he did. We rang a short method of 96 changes, but it is getting us used to hearing the splice calls and bob calls. And Andrew did a fine job.

We next rang a touch of Plain Bob, again with Andrew calling. Jane and Andrew switched places for this, since Jane says it is easier to know when to call the bobs when you are ringing the tenors. The method was not hard, but Andrew is still learning to know when to call the bobs. Jane said he should call the bobs at “wrong, home, wrong, home” and explained what that meant. Randy was trying to follow along, and maybe gets it? But we won’t know for sure until/unless he tries it! And he’s not sure he wants to do that.

We finished with a plain course of St. Clements College Bob, just to keep it in our heads. And rang it correctly the second try (the first try didn’t even make it to the first lead). At that point, we called it a day.