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.

There were four of us today; Andrew, Jane, Maggie, and Randy.

We started with a plain course of St. Clements College Bob with Andrew on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. We rang it (mostly) correctly on the first go, without breaking or needing to start over, and it felt good.

In order to ring a spliced method, we decided to ring a plain course of Little Bob, with Randy on the trebles, Andrew on 3/4. Jane on 5/6, and Maggie on the tenors. That went well, and so we moved to splicing Little Bob and Plain Bob, with Andrew calling the changes. He threw in a Bob so that the method was a bit longer. We rang this a few times, with different calls, and Andrew calling them all.

We finished with some touches of Bob Major (Jane calling). We started in the same positions as above, but after a few failed attempts we decided to rotate, so that Maggie was on the trebles, Randy on 3/4, Andrew on 5/6, and Jane on the tenors. This went well. Jane called something she says is a typical Service touch, lasting about 5 minutes and typically rung just before a church service as something musical that doesn’t sound repetitive.

All in all, a good day of ringing.

We had four people today, Andrew, Jane, Maggie, and Randy. So we rang major. It has been more than a month since this band has practiced together! So we were a little rusty.

We started, as usual, with St. Clements College Bob with Andrew on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. We rang it twice with only a few bobbles here and there – not enough to cause us to halt, and I was really impressed with us! In fact, we rang it so well that Randy suggested we do a touch of that method, which we have never attempted before. Sadly, that went about as well as you would expect. To be clear, not well. We tried a few times, and never got much past the first called bob, and so decided to call a halt and do something else.

We hadn’t rung Little Bob in quite a while, and so we tried that. We started with Andrew on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Randy on 5/6, and Jane on the tenors. We quickly decided that was the wrong arrangement of bells, and so Randy and Andrew switched places. This was much better, and after a few false starts we were able to ring this a few times. By this time we had been ringing for an hour, and were deciding whether to call a halt or not.

We decided to ring Bob Major quickly as a final method, but then Andrew suggested a touch and we decided that sounded like great fun as a finisher. Sadly, we didn’t finish the touch, but we did get quite far (after a bad start or two), and really enjoyed ourselves. We also rang at a fairly good pace. Not as fast as our usual speed round, but fast nonetheless.

Great fun!

After a three week break (Christmas Day, New Year’s Day), we gathered today. We had four people, one of whom is a beginner. So we rang some major and some minor. Erik, Maggie, Jane, and Randy.

We started with some Plain Hunt major, with Randy on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Erik learning the tenors. Erik was able to get that pattern down, to the point that after ringing it 3 or 4 times, Jane gave him some quick instruction on a different pair (3/4) to study while the other three rang something else.

So while Erik was studying the 3/4 pattern of Plain Hunt major, Randy (trebles), Jane (3/4), and Maggie (tenors) rang St. Clements College Bob minor. This was the first time Maggie had run the tenors for that method. It took us a few times to get it right, but was able to ring a plain course of St. Clements College Bob. And it sounded glorious, if I do say so myself!

Bringing Erik back into the group, we rang some Plain Hunt major, with Randy (trebles), Erik (3/4), Jane (5/6), and Maggie (tenors). We wouldn’t win any competitions with that round, but Erik was able to get the pair down after a very short struggle. Jane thought Erik was doing so well, she thought he could learn the tenors of Plain Bob major, and got him studying that pair while the others went back to St. Clements College Bob minor.

We decided to try a different arrangement, with Maggie on the trebles, Jane on 3/4, and Randy on the tenors. That didn’t work so well, and so we went back to the original orientation and rang this method a few times more. We then switched to Maggie on the trebles, Jane on 3/4, and Randy on the tenors, and rang a speed course of Plain Bob minor. It’s always thrilling to ring fast!

Erik came back to the group, and we rang Plain Bob major, with Randy (trebles), Maggie (3/4), Jane (5/6), and Erik (tenors). On the fourth lead, where the tenors go into the 2/3 pattern, we gave Erik a bit of help, but he struggled through! And when we rang it again, he needed much less help.

We finished the day with some fast call changes (queens and rounds) with Erik on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. We again rang as quickly as we could, and had great fun!

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!

There were four of us again today, so we got to ring a lot of major. We rang St. Clements College Bob, Little Bob, and Plain Bob But we rang on different pairs today. Mind stretching!

To start, we rang St. Clements College Bob, with Jane on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Andrew on 5/6, and Randy on tenors. This went pretty well. Jane doesn’t normally ring the trebles, but did well.

We decided to ring a touch of St. Clements College Bob in the same positions as above, but that just didn’t work. Jane was trying to keep track of too many things, and so we continued to crash. After the third attempt, we swapped pairs. Andrew on the trebles, Maggie remaining on 3/4, Randy on 5/6, and Jane on the tenors. This was a first attempt for Randy on that pair, and it didn’t go very well. We eventually were able to ring a plain course, but decided after too many attempts to try something different.

So we moved to Little Bob, ringing the same pairs as the latest St. Clements College. Again, a first for Randy on 5/6, and it took a couple of tries, but we did finally ring a plain course.

At this point, Randy begged off due to commitments this evening, and so we rang a speed plain course of Plain Bob, with Maggie on the trebles, Andrew on 3/4, Randy on 5/6, and Jane on the tenors. It has been a while since we rang this configuration, and while it went very well, it didn’t go as fast as we would have liked. But we still called a result!

We had 4 today! It’s always more fun to ring Major than Minor, right?

It was a fairly simple day, though. We started with St. Clements College Bob with Andrew on the trebles, Maggie on 3/4, Jane on 5/6, and Randy on the tenors. We rang this 3 times, but just a plain course. Randy says he is really starting to understand the tenors of this method, and is enjoying ringing them. (He previously rang the trebles, and has that down pat.)

After spending 40 minutes or so ringing that, we decided to start splicing it with Plain Bob. With one false start (Jane called a change in method at a place that brought us to the end too quickly), we rang a fun and good method (I don’t know the length). Towards the end, we were ringing Plain Bob, and Jane told us to pick up the pace, since it was going to remain in Plain Bob until the end.

We didn’t end with a speed run of Plain Bob as normal, but the end of the splice was a good substitute.