We had 4 people today, Andrew, Jane, Maggie, and Randy. Since three of us have been working on Single Canterbury Pleasure Bob (minor), we thought we would try SCPB Major tonight. Andrew took a look at it, and said, “Oh, this is just Plain Bob with Kent Places.” So we rang it. Maggie on the trebles, Jane on 3/4, Andrew on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors.

Amazingly, we rang a plain course on the first try! We were all very impressed with Andrew, who had never rung this before, and with ourselves, who had only ever rung Minor for this method. And so, Andrew suggested we ring a simple touch of this method. Jane did not want to ring any bells that were affected by a Bob, and so she and Andrew switched bells, and Jane called the touch (three Bobs at home).

The first time we crashed fairly early – before any Bobs had been called. Not sure what happened, but we just started over. The second attempt saw us crash right after the Bob. Even though we knew what we were supposed to do, actually doing it is a different story. (Hey, long fourths can be tricky to think through!) So, because we ring handbells (and so we can), we started midway through the lead before the first Bob. We got through the Bob this time, but then crashed again before the end. I don’t recall where we started that third time, but we were able to ring to the end of the method after that. So, perhaps with a little cheat, we rang a simple touch of Single Canterbury Pleasure Bob Major.

This took most of our hour, and so we finished with a speed run of Plain Bob Major, with Maggie on the trebles, Jane on 3/4, Andrew on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. We rang larger bells for this, and stood up for the duration. Sadly, we crashed in the second lead, but started over and rang the entire thing very quickly. It sounds glorious on those larger bells!

We are discussing the possibility of doing a “tower tour” in April or May, where we bring our bells to various locations in the city and ring for a while. Then move to another location and ring some more. Being near the beach results in some nice ringing, and we may attract some new ringers if we are very lucky. This is just in the preliminary stages at this time. But we have done this in the past (many years ago), and had a blast doing it. More later.