We were three tonight – Jane, Andrew, Randy. We have been practicing Kent, and so attempted to ring Kent Minor tonight. Randy on the trebles, Jane on 3/4, Andrew on the tenors. Normally Maggie is ringing the trebles, so this was a switch for Randy.

After a few false starts, we were able to get through three of the five leads, and do so fairly consistently. So we decided to start at the end of the third lead (which has a nice rollup of 165432 on a handstroke). And after a few attempts we were able to get from that point to the end.

Kent is a strange method, because it sounds like a jumble just before it comes around to rounds, and so getting to the end of the method can be quite a surprise for those who are new to ringing it. We discovered that tonight. It also has a funny thing happen just before and after the lead end, in which the bells in the third and fourth positions make places for two changes, which also feels very odd to ringers used to Plain Bob.

Once we had both halves down fairly well, we just needed to put them together. So starting from the beginning, we rang. And again, it took one or more attempts, but we were able to finally ring Kent Minor with this band! It felt like a real accomplishment.

Afterwards, we talked about the coronation that took place this past weekend. Jane had watched it (had recorded it and watched it later, due to the time zone difference, and to allow skipping some of the pre-show crowd chatter). There is a lot of history in the coronation, in case you didn’t watch it. Pieces of regalia that are more than 1000 years old!