Bank Holiday Bells and Baking

There’s something that goes hand in hand with bells and baking really. Many a #bellringing meeting takes place after some actually bellringing, but more importantly what is known as a Bellringers Tea.

A bellringers tea consists of a mountain of sandwiches, savouries, the rare sighting of a salad, but the most important ingredient, and one that teas are often, silently judged on, is cake. Lots and lots of cake. Preferably homemade cake at that.

I’m not sure what came first for me, bellringing or baking? Probably baking actually. Watching my grandad bake and mum having a Sunday afternoon bake up. I do remember a sibling competition on who could make the best choux buns. I seem to remember winning that one!

Anyway, today I did a bit of both.

As usual for Friday mornings, I joined my sister’s group as we practiced some more Wells Surprise Minor and Cambridge Surprise Major, the methods of the month for my Thursday night sessions, that she wants some extra goes at.

As part of the BakedIn baking club, I sent off for the Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Bun kit, and they really had to be made today for the Easter weekend. They were quite straightforward to make, and I cheated by using the kneading hook on my Kenwood rather than busting a wrist trying to knead the dough. C and I decided to go whole hog and add the chocolate chips AND the raisins that were part of the kit as an alternative.

Whilst the buns were on their second prove, I attended a virtual bellringing meeting with the survival and recovery steering group. Lots of good things coming. During the middle of that I had to check on the buns, so before I muted my mic and video, I declared that the answer to everything whilst I was away was “no”, just in case they had any funny ideas about giving a load of actions whilst I wasn’t there to defend myself.

Buns were now in the oven and meeting resumed. Lots more good things discussed and planned. Then I had to rescue the buns from the oven and glaze them, so made another hasty disappearing act. I was quite disappointed that the buns had spread rather than risen too much. They looked ok. They smelled ok. And when we taste tested them, they tasted ok too.

Someone suggested toasting them and slathering butter all over them. That sounds quite disgusting, but then I don’t like butter, or similar, anyway.

I’ll get round to it eventually

Today I managed to tick something off my to do list that has been there since last September. It’s not anything urgent or that anyone else is dependent on, but one of those jobs that would take a lot of time and mental energy and I’d need to be in the right frame of mind to do it. Today was that day.

I’ve been doing a series of interviews with bellringers and posting them to a Youtube channel over the last year, I guess you could call it my lockdown project (despite the fact that I’ve not been restricted by lockdown at all). There was an interview I recorded in September that still needed to be edited and made ready for uploading. It’s not due to go out yet, as there are others ahead of it in the queue, but I kept putting off the editing as I just didn’t feel in the right frame of mind to do it.

Today though, annual report deliveries are much more local, so didn’t take that long to whizz round, so it provided a good opportunity to tick a few longstanding items off the list.

The edit took about 2 hours, cutting out the “ums” and “ahs” and silent thinking pauses, the repetitions and waffle. Its important that each interview covers the main questions and puts both the interviewee and #bellrinigng in a good light. Any references to anything slightly odd needs to come out. I’ve also been taking references to the Covid restrictions out, so that they make the conversations more timeless.

I did also get around to uploading the next interview in the sequence and sharing that, so hopefully people will get to see it over the next few days. The last one I uploaded was 2 months ago, so it was a while overdue. With the one that I’ve just finished editing, I still have 4 interviews to upload in this series. Then there’s the Bellringers Question Time and 2 talks associated with the Ringing Course that will be uploaded. Plenty of content over the coming months.

By the time the last interview has been uploaded, we should be back into some semblance of #bellringing and there might be opportunity to actually record some ringing to showcase what we’ve been talking about in these interviews all this time.

So, 2 longstanding items ticked off the to do list. Only another 3 to go, plus all the stuff that comes in regularly anyway. A good day at the (home) office.

You could get a ring of 8 in there!

Annual Report delivery day #3 took us to the NE of the County and to the home of the NE District Secretary to delivery the reports for the NE District members. One the way back we stopped off at Brightlingsea for our picnic lunch. Neither of us has ever been to Brightlingsea before, and to be honest, are not likely to ever go there again.

However, as you go into the town, there a large church, All Saints, at the top of the hill. We know that there are no bells in there (not for full circle ringing anyway) however the structure of the church and tower could easily take a decent set of 8 bells or event a set of 10. It pinged up on our Sat Nav which is loaded with the Doves Guide points of interest, so it must have a bell in there.

When we eventually got a signal, we checked the new and improved Doves Guide but Brightlingsea wasn’t listed at all. C did a google search and according to the church guide “the most striking external feature is the embattled tower, built of local flint in the last years of the 15th century. The tower stands 97 feet high, in three stages, with a minstrel gallery built into the lowest stage. The tower really is quite remarkable; with one of the finest examples of diagonal buttress bracing in East Anglia” https://www.britainexpress.com/counties/essex/churches/brightlingsea.htm

“Said to be 2 bells, one by William Dawe circa 1400, inscribed Dulcis Sisto Melis Vocor Campana Michaelis. Sanctus uninscribed.” https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1337182

“the ringing chamber presents some curious features; in the belfry are frames for 5 or 6 bells, but only one of the ancient peal, dating from about A.D. 1450, now remains; there is also a small sanctus bell unhung: in 1889 a peal of 10 tubular bells was presented by M. Bayard Brown esq. an American gentleman visiting Brightlingsea in his steam yacht “Valfreyia:” https://ukga.org/churches.php?pageid=4444

Our route back home took us to drop off reports for Inworth (6 bells), Tollesbury (10 bells), Tolleshunt D’Arcy (6 bells), Great Totham (6 bells), Goldhanger (8 bells), Maldon St Mary (6 bells) and Maldon All Saints (8 bells).

So many bells and we didn’t even ring one of them.

Skylarking around Dengie Deliveries

Annual Report delivery day #2 took us out to the Dengie Peninsula, a stretch of Essex coastline that is formed by the Rivers Crouch and Blackwater, both tidal, and the North Sea to the east. The boundary of the Dengie Hundred ran from North Fambridge to west of Maldon.

We drove out to via Purleigh to Bradwell on Sea, home of the power station (not The Power Station – Robert Palmer and escapee Duran Duran band members) and the Chapel, where St Cedd landed to teach us heathens about Christianity in 654 AD. We walked down to the Chapel, then instead of turning left, the usual route that walkers take along the coastline towards the power station, we decided to talk the right hand path that tracks along the saltmarshes towards Burnham on Crouch. We walked for a while then stopped for a packup lunch and watch a bit of nature.

I have one of those apps that helps you identify birds by their call, so when I set it off, it told me that the riotous squawking was coming from Skylarks. We couldn’t see any but they were making an almighty racket. Then there was a different sound, just in one particular spot, and the app told me that was a Redshank. Again, couldn’t see any but this one was rather vocal. We also spotted, but didn’t hear some gulls, mallards, a coote and a solitary egret type bird. There were some other sea birds a bit further out be we couldn’t make them out.

After our 4 mile round trip, we started our deliveries. Reports for Bradwell, only we went up and down the same stretch of road about 4 times trying to find a house name. Then the return journey via Southminster to Tillingham and then Burnham on Crouch.

When we arrived at Burnham we decided to have another little walk along the river edge. And stop for the obligatory ice cream. What a palaver that turned out to be. There are two ice cream outlets opposite each other. One seemed to have a long queue, the other didn’t, so we joined the one with the shorter queue. Then we noticed that they had a sign telling you that basically they’d run out of all flavours of ice cream except two. So we turned around and joined the other queue. It took FOREVER to get served. There seemed to be four staff, one on ice creams and the other three taking it in turns serving chips and hot food, or standing around chatting. The young lady serving the ice cream seemed to have the memory of a goldfish. If you gave her too many options, she just couldn’t remember it. And from the time of taking your order, and your money, to actually starting your order, she had everything jumbled up. It must have taken at least 20 minutes to get our order. We did wonder whether it was worth it, but when you so close to the front of the queue, you kind of have to stay with it.

Anyway, eventually with ice cream in hand, we continued our walk passed some houseboats and the playing field to as far as we could get along the harbour, where the marina is. We clocked up another 1.7 miles.

A leisurely drive back home through the countryside and back into the city, on a beautifully day. Tomorrow’s adventure takes us north!

Planning the week ahead

I have another week off work, to use up some annual leave. I’m writing reports, presentations, planning and attending #bellringing meetings, writing articles, and promoting #bellringing events. At some point there’s a bunch of household things that need doing, I would like to do some baking this week (I have chocolate orange hot cross buns, and chocolate easter cake to make), and I would like to spend some down time going for walks etc as the weather is supposed to be good this week. My to do list is quite lengthy.

C and I have just planned the week out based on what the weather forecast has in store. We have a lot of annual report deliveries to do and plan to splice that with some walks out along the coasts and picnics, so have made a plan based on what we need to deliver where and how many loads can we get rid of in as few journeys as possible.

We went to the wholesalers today, so there was a long shopping list of things to restock the freezer with. Along side that sat the list of reports that we could drop off en route. We dropped the Southern District ones off on our way.

Back home and it was unpacking the shopping and portioning it up into meal sized bags. Our freezer is well and truly stuffed now. We didn’t get home until nearly 3pm so lunch was a bit on the late side, meaning dinner will be even later today. For lunch I tried one of the pasties I made yesterday, they were quite tasty actually.

After lunch, a bit more promotional preparations ahead of tomorrow’s release, then I had a play on Ringing Room, now that I have Wheatley installed, I can ring on my own whilst it does the rest. I plugged in my e-bells and had a go at some plain hunt minor on each pair of bells. I finally got the hang of 3-4. Then I tried some plain bob minimus. After several goes I finally “saw” what I was doing with the 3,4 up dodge. Then I moved on to having a go at some plain hunt major. I found very quickly that I tuned into the rhythm and it sounded pretty good, even if I only did it from 1-2.

For some explicable reason I decided to get my weighted hula hooping out for the first time since 1st January. It took a few minutes to remember how to log exercise on my fitness watch. I did manage about 6 minutes on the first go. I could certainly tell my middle has gone soft.

Whilst C cooked dinner I did some preparations for a meeting that I have on Saturday so that I have everything I need to hand and can share my ideas with the rest of the group.

Only then did I sit down to read a book and watch tv, and fall asleep on the sofa. Until tomorrow’s adventure.

Sweet and Savoury

I don’t often bake savoury things, I’m more of a cake, cupcake, pudding, desserts kinda gal. However, I must get back on the diet train so decided that for my lunches this coming week I’d make some pasties from the first Pinch of Nom book.

Now they cheat because they don’t use pastry, which is fine by me as I’m rubbish at making pastry. They day someone invested Ready Roll pastry sheets was the day the world became a better place. However, these particular pasties use tortilla wraps. I followed the recipe almost exactly, swapping the stewing steak for minced beef (as we have some available) but I included the carrot (yuk), as I figured that they’d be small enough chunks that I’d swallow them whole without having to taste them.

I must admit, I had reservations about how they’d turn out. I didn’t think that they would seal properly as they kept smooshing about when I was using a fork to seal them. However, they did, and there was no leakage. I baked them for a little while longer than the recipe said until I decided that they were nice golden-brown colour. I do think they look pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I guess the proof will be in the eating.

I think that as I used mince instead of stewing steak there was more mixture to do around. The recipe said that it would make 4 pasties but I managed to get double that. Maybe I was a bit cautious about filling them and the one that I did put more filling in was the hardest to try and seal. So now I have 2 whopping great pasties for lunch Monday – Thursday next week.

I only ever seem to make lunches for the 4 days that I’m at work. Friday lunches are usually make do and mend with whatever is in the fridge or cupboard, which has resulted in some interesting combinations, although if there’s enough of C’s bread left I’ll quite often do cheese on toast.

With a bit more planning I should lose some weight before a wedding in July.

Tidy space, tidy mind – there’s an App for that!

I follow a Facebook group that posts about the Marie Kondo method of tidying, and I did start an attempt at it a while ago. Only ever got as far as tidying out my sock drawer. Someone mentioned on that group that they were struggling to keep on time with the continual cleaning and tidying rota. Someone else commented that their husband was always asking what needed doing (isn’t it obvious?). There are always a multitude of helpful answers to these sorts of dilemmas. What struck me most was that someone mentioned an app that they have on their phone that reminds them what tasks need doing and when. Really?

I’m a curious soul so I have a wander around my Appstore and found numerous tools that will help you with how to clean, what to clean, and when to clean it. I downloaded one just to take a deeper look at it. I landed on Sweepy. It has a cute little character that talks you through setting up each room in your house, and what items are in each room. You can set a frequency as to how often you want to clean it, its current state i.e. dirty or clean or somewhere in between. You can set the effort required to undertake the task from easy, medium, or hard.

For the premium (paid) version you can set up a daily schedule and it’ll send you reminders of what needs doing that day. This will also allow you to connect to others in your household to share the chores. You can set task validation for the smallest family members who always like to help (!!!) so you can give them little tasks that they can get on with, then check up on them and give them a virtual award for doing a good job. Needless to say, I’m not paying for it.

When you click on an element in a room you can select Done, enter the date it was completed, and change any of the settings. I haven’t actually done any yet. I have a fundamental dislike of housework. I actually got my previous management role (head of the hospital cleaners) after I’d said that I have no interest in cleaning, I vacuum when it gets crunchy underfoot and I dust when I can’t see the tv screen. They must have been desperate! I might do something just to tick it off and see what happens.

It’s just bonkers that there’s an app for just about anything you could think of now.

In the nick of time… and other idioms

Idioms are words used to describe something figuratively rather than literally. Today they just kept popping into my head.

C and I popped into town briefly at lunchtime to pick up the Association newsletters from the printers and get a couple of bits from the shops. When we went out, the sun was shining. It was a little bit breezy, but not particularly cold. So far so good.

We had been home for about 10 minutes and the heavens opened.

We got home just in the nick of time when out of the blue it started raining cats and dogs. If we hadn’t we’d have been in a hot mess. We’re not spring chickens so we wouldn’t have been able to leg it home without getting soaked. All things considered, we were on the same page when we agreed to go out earlier in the day.

That did put pay to doing anything outdoorsy for several hours. Luckily, we have enough to do so that we’re not just twiddling our thumbs.

I had a meeting in the afternoon and read through some emails so that I could hit the ground running when we got the ball rolling. We were chewing the fat over some ideas that were out of the box and could possibly be the best thing since sliced bread.

When it was time to call it a day, I settled in to being a coach potato for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to stuff my face.

Don’t get stuck in a rut

Predictability is all well and good, and there’s certainly a place for having a routine that helps you navigate the day, especially when you have lots going on. But it can feel like being stuck in a rut or on a merry-go-round at times, when things happen and there’s no energy or enthusiasm in it.

Every now and then its good to mix things up a bit. Now, I’m certainly someone that likes a bit of regimented routine, I like to plan things well in advance, and I am conscious that there’s a lot in the diary to keep me occupied. Having a lot in the diary isn’t the same though. A lot of those things are the same only slightly different. There are #bellringing meetings. They could be with different groups of people about slightly different topics, but essentially they are meetings about #bellringing. Then there’s actually ringing, currently the online version, however C and I have been continuing to ring two bells at the Cathedral on a Sunday morning to keep things ticking over. Again, that’s all a bit predictable and “safe”.

Even doing small things differently can help us keep that enthusiasm going. Something as simple as trying a different menu option on the takeaway menu can add a bit of intrigue.

Every now and then something larger scale needs to happen to really shake things up a bit. Maybe rearrange the furniture in the lounge. Redecorate. Take cooking lessons. Learn a new skill.

https://www.under30ceo.com/25-ways-to-live-differently/ offers some ideas on how to make small changes that may have a big impact on living differently:

Think Big – don’t let self-imposed limits hold you back.
Work hard for yourself, no one else.
Be inspired. Find out what makes you tick and do more of that.
Do something regularly that scares you. Maybe send that report you’re worried out what reception it will receive. Put yourself out there. Do that talk. Challenge your fears.
Travel. Locally, nationally, internationally. Investigate other people and places.
Find ways to be more productive. Working from home can free up commute time that you could do something else in.
Find out when you’re most productive. If you’re more switched on first thing in the morning, or last thing at night, do your best work then.
Be responsible for your own life. Your health, wealth, your environment and well-being.
Live your dream, not someone else’s.
Unlearn things. Having more or bigger stuff doesn’t mean its better.
Spend within your limits. If the cash isn’t in your account, you shouldn’t get it. You’ll end up paying twice as much in the long run.
Be outdoors as much as you can, taking in the natural world. If you can take your laptop or phone outside for meetings then do that.
Don’t sit around all day. Move. Your body will thank you.
Declutter. Do you need all that stuff? What purpose does it serve? Would someone else benefit from it?
Don’t waste precious natural resources. Recycle, reduce energy, reuse.
Turn off notifications. Stop letting social media dictate when you should access it.
Turn the TV off and read a book instead. You’re more likely to learn something.

We need to stop comparing ourselves to others and trying to keep up with the Jones’s. They’re not living our life and we need to live our dreams.

Can’t be in 2 places at once

Last night had a clash of #bellringing diaries. I should have been at an advanced district practice but also needed to be at a Central Council exec meeting.

This clash now happens very month. Last year it wasn’t a problem because we weren’t running the advanced practices. However we decided to put them back on the virtual agenda this year and try them out. Last month was the first one and as I set up the Zoom I kinda needed to be there so sent my apologies to the CC meeting.

This month though I needed to be at the CC meeting as I was on the Agenda. I did set up the advanced practice zoom session but needed to hand it over to someone else to run.

It was an interesting experiment. C attended the advanced practice on the PC next to me on my laptop attending the CC meeting. We both glanced over at the other several times and at one point were both talking to our respective meetings at the same time.

I missed out on practicing Little Bob Major and Yorkshire Surprise Major and the fact that they finished soon after 9pm. My meeting went on until 10:20pm.

Next month I’ll probably go to the advanced practice and give apologies to the CC meeting. I’ll probably end up alternating.