I’ve been given the opportunity to participate in a #bellringing pilot program where exceptionally expert ringers give their time to help those like myself who are trying to master Surprise Major methods.
I’ve been on 2 sessions now mostly with different helpers, but a couple of familiar faces, and the same person has lead both sessions I’ve been on, which is helpful as they get to know your capabilities.
Its been a while since #bellringing has given me so much stress.
On both occasions I’ve spent all day stressing over it, then an hour or so practicing on Abel beforehand. Then trying hard not to use a crib sheet. It’s scary whilst it’s happening because you don’t want to come across as the village idiot. There were a couple of things said this week that I didn’t understand. I had to ask C about one before the session started, and then just laughed the other one off on the call. That’s the one thing I would say does need to be considered by these experts, not everybody will understand some of the terminology, or what difference it makes to the ringing.
Then, because of all the use of brain power, I started to get a headache and get very warm towards the end. Probably the warmest I’d been all day as its about 0 degrees at the moment.
Then there’s a sense of relief when it’s all over. Glad that RingingRoom exists. Glad not to have made a complete fool of myself. Glad to have the opportunity. Glad to have met and rung with ringers from all over, including one from New Zealand. Glad that C had cooked dinner whilst I was ringing and bought me up one of my bottles of prosecco left from my advent calendar. Glad its over … until next time 🤣
New Years Day morning. A new year ahead that hasn’t been written yet. C made a cooked brunch. I could get used to that 😋.
This year will mark a significant birthday for me. The day this blog is uploaded will mark 50 days until I turn 50. I don’t have any issues with turning 50, it is but a number after all.
The 12 months before I turned 40 I kept a daily diary. I did think of doing something similar for the year that I turned 50 but somehow never got round to it. I guess you could say that I’ve used this blog as a sort of diary, although there’s lots that I haven’t written in a blog that I would have written in a diary.
Starting a new year and a new decade of life gives me the opportunity to start afresh and start as I mean to go on. I could get used to C cooking me breakfast every day but thats not practical or too good for my health. I could take this opportunity to establish some new habits. Start or do more of the things that I ought to do better and drop things that I should not, do less of or that self sabotage.
I read somewhere on line recently that it can take from 18 to 254 days to form a new habit and an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. Now, I’m not one for New Years resolutions, but I have 50 days to do 50 things that will have a positive habit forming effect on my life to take me into my 50s.
OK, so let’s join the band wagon of a review of the last year. After all, its been a very different kind of year. Every aspect of every part of life has been impacted one way or another.
Career – started the year thinking it was going to be another year of same old, same old. For the first 3 months that’s exactly how it was. When covid hit it put a lot of things into perspective and I made a decision that, to be honest, had been brewing a while. An opportunity came along to get back into project management, albeit on a secondment. I had to take it for my own sanity. Even though I didn’t start in the new role until December, the thought of it being there was enough to see me through some really horrible months.
Ringing – various ups and downs along the way. Normal routine of Sunday service, monthly quarter peals and weekly practices turned into nothing at all, then maybe 5 people of a Sunday but no practices, then down to just the 2 of us. It looked like we could have gone back up to 5 again for Christmas Day but at the last minute it was not to be. At first I didn’t want to embrace the virtual world of #bellringing. It just didn’t seem worth it. But by May I was running my own weekly practice for family and friends, joining in the odd other online practice and starting to run a monthly district practice and organise a monthly 10 bell practice. Taking full advantage of ringing methods that I wouldn’t normally get to ring in a tower.
Homelife – I suppose this is where its hit hardest. We haven’t been able to gather as a family for all the usual events. Mum’s 80th birthday, the May “counting”, R’s birthday, Dad’s birthday. No holiday, no ringing weekends. No visits to North Lincolnshire or Hemel Hempstead or Nottingham. No Cake International Show. We did manage to get a couple of day trips to see R when we were all allowed to mix in small groups again but towards the end of the year it became impossible again. We did set up a regular fortnightly family Skype so we could all keep in touch and at least see each other on a screen if not in person.And of course Christmas was very different. No car boot present swap, no drinking Baileys with R. Just a low key day with C, and chatting with family on Skype.
Cakes – as we haven’t had the usual gathering I’ve not needed to bake as many cakes. I did make a small one for mum’s 80th, a friends 60th and Dad’s birthday, but they only needed to be small ones. I have tried some other bakes instead and been mostly up to date with my BakedIn boxes. I’ve tried a few other recipes too, and did manage to get to a socially distanced class with my favourite teacher at @thecupcakeoven to learn how to make cakecicles and heart gems. I didn’t need to make a Christmas cake as we’re not massive fans of it and we got so much food in the hampers that people sent us. I’m hoping that there’ll be more opportunity for cake in 2021.
I suppose I’m quite fortunately really in that I’ve still been able to go to work and keep some semblance of routine. I’m reasonably tech savvy so have been able to embrace video conferencing and Ringing Room. And of course, the most important bit is that I have managed to stay healthy, as has the rest of the family.
Nothing is going to dramatically change as the clock strikes midnight and a new year starts. But there is hope on the horizon. My colleagues are going through an incredibly tough time and are on their knees trying to keep everyone else healthy but with little support and those idiots that flout the rules and put everyone else at risk. But I do have a sense that we will come out of this the other side. Things will be different and we won’t go back to the way things were, or at least I hope not. We have proven that we can work and play differently.
My various social media feeds are already abuzz with suggestions about how to start the new year with a new outlook, or a new plan or a new … (insert anything of newness here). Magazines are already cramming the newsagent shelves with top tips on making 2021 the “best year yet“.
An article I’m currently reading offers 4 such tips.
1. Have a vision of where you want to be. Dream big and realign your mindset to think bigger and be more ambitious.
2. Learn something new. Overcome the fear of new knowledge by reading or watching YouTube videos, or do an online course.
3. Prioritise wellbeing to help focus on success. Stress associated with moving forward should be met with taking time to step back and relax.
4. Strengthen your resolve. Put in the time and effort to gain success. Keep going when things get tough. Implement good habits that support your goals.
Well, that’s all fine and dandy but I find it mildly contradictive. You’ve got to steam ahead with goals and learn new stuff and keep going when things get tough, but chill out and relax. If I’m chilling out and relaxing, how exactly am I embracing my ambition, expanding my knowledge and being more resilient? Unless my goal is to chill out, learn how to chill out properly and I resolve to chill out better. Maybe that’s the answer.
Whatever your vision is, whether you want to learn something new, however strong your resolve is and however good you are with your personal wellbeing, I wish you a happy, healthy and safe New Year.
I fancied something different for my breakfasts this week. I usually have a yoghurt with grape nuts for breakfast when I’m at work. But as the weather is turning colder I wanted something that I coukd eat hot but was still within the SW rules.
Yesterday I baked some versions of Baked Oats. This consists of 40g of oats, 100g yoghurt, 1 egg, a teaspoon of baking powder and then whatever filling you fancy. Could be anything from apple sauce, Nutella, jam, mincemeat, whatever you fancy really. The interesting thing is you could eat these bakes for breakfast or even as a hot dessert, maybe with some cream, ice cream or custard if you’re feeling extravagant.
I made 3 lots as I’ll be in the office 3 days this week. I put Biscoff spread in one, but didn’t have enough for more, so raspberry jam went in the other 2.
After they’d baked for 40 minutes and cooled down, I covered them with cling film and put them in the fridge. The trouble was by then I couldn’t remember which one was which.
I grabbed one on my way out this morning. At a time I decided it was breakfast time I warmed it through in the microwave for 4 minutes. I still couldn’t tell which one I’d grabbed.
It was only as I plunged my spoon in that I discovered it was one of the jam ones. That means tomorrow there’s a fifty-fifty chance of Biscoff.
The wonders of technology and the inspiration of the inventors of Ringing Room means that we get to ring bells from the comfort of our own homes on our computers.
Bank Holiday Monday gave us another opportunity to try for another family quarter peal on Ringing Room with representation from Essex, North Lincolnshire and Nottingham.
Timed to start early enough in the morning so we have time to do other things during the day, but late enough for either a bit of a lay in and a lazy start to the day, or to get something done beforehand for those with more enthusiasm for that sort of thing.
Although not #bellringing on tower bells, I’m still counting these virtual quarters within my records as they still require the same level of concentration, take the same length of time to complete, and for some, require the same level of learning. I know some people are not counting them in their personal records as they are not rung on tower bells.
Both the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and The Ringing World are counting them as “distributed” and therefore recognising their legitimacy but acknowledging that they don’t require the same physical exertion.
This latest one brings my total for 2020 to 7 quarter peals. Not bad considering we’ve not been able to ring with others since March. We rang 4 tower bell quarters in the first 3 months then 3 Ringing Room quarters in the last couple of months.
My overall total is now 412 quarter peals. Considering how long I’ve been ringing you could argue that that’s not many but I think its a reasonable total when you consider opportunities. There was a whole period where I just didn’t ring any at all.
I actually enjoyed ringing the Ringing Room quarters and perhaps…. I could stretch to a peal. 🤔
I had the opportunity to play with my new Christmas gadget on Sunday. C bought me a Hohem stabilising gimble to help record some epic videos on my phone.
I took it up the tower when we went #bellringing to record C and me doing our socially distanced ringing on two bells.
I’ve been recording our ringing for several weeks and uploading it to my YouTube channel, but taking it just on my phone, meaning it was on selfie mode, so it looks like the bells are hung anticlockwise.
I set the gimble up and set it off. It recorded well and the sound quality was good. The bells are even the right way around.
I tried several modes like the panoramic view and tracking a moving image but I was just randomly pressing buttons, without knowing what I was really doing, so it didn’t quite work. I need to watch a tutorial or two to get the hang of it.
I’m looking forward to improving my video skills and it would be interesting to record something when we have all the bells back ringing.
So having spoken about overindulgence of Christmas day, Boxing Day seemed much more civilised.
We had luxuriated in an epic sleep in. Having gone to bed around midnight. C had turned the alarms off, so it was lovely to wake up naturally instead of being ripped awake by a shrieking radio. Nearly 9 hours of sleep clocked up.
We had nowhere to go and nothing in particular to do, so took our time getting up, showered and dressed. C started cooking and at about 10:30 delivered a small cooked breakfast of bacon, beans, egg and toast. Just what the doctor ordered.
After a lazy morning we decided we’d go for a walk through the city centre parks. We wouldn’t be needing lunch as we were still going on brunch and yesterday’s dinner.
A 5.5m walk through the parks seemed to be precisely what half of the inhabitants of town were also doing. It was actually quite pleasant. Just the right amount of autumnal weather. Coolish but not too cold, a gentle breeze but not windy. Wrapped up against it all, and with a steady pace, we were kept warm.
I must admit at about two thirds of the way round I was starting to think my hips were aching a bit and the prospect of the road home, including the incline over the railway bridge really wasn’t helping. The thing that kept me going was getting back home for a cup of mint tea and the last mince pie.
Our walk had taken about 2 hours. I was actually worn out. I had started to think about Hygge, pronounced hooga, the Danish sense of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that gives a sense of contentment and well being. I was looking forward to snuggling under my sofa blanket, tea and mince pie in hand. Very cozy, very comfortable and very content.
Why is it over the Christmas period apparently its ok to eat food, snacks, drink tons of alcohol, and generally put on your own body weight in food again? Essentially, its one day. Essentially its just like having a Sunday roast. So why do we obsess over all the additional stuff?
Don’t get me wrong, I do it too. I love all the special foods that they only seem to bring out at Christmas. I could eat a whole plate of pigs in blankets. I can shovel food in my face until the point of feeling physically sick at the thought of another “wafer thin mint” (see Monty Python sketch in The Meaning of Liff).
I don’t tend to eat breakfast so Christmas morning was just a cup of coffee for me. We had to go ringing so wouldn’t have had time for much else anyway. When we got home, we had more coffee and 2 mince pies (seemingly extra large ones from the bakery stall in town) whilst we were on the family Skype. We had a 3 bird roast, enough to fed 4, and all the trimmings for lunch. We had half the meat for Christmas day and will have the other half for Sunday lunch. That was washed down with a bottle of Moet & Chandon that we’ve had for a while. Then followed by an epic chocolate orange cheesecake that I’d made. The recipe said that it made 12 servings. We’ve cut it into 6!
We have hampers of food that family members have been generous to send, and chocolates etc that people have given as gifts. I couldn’t even look at it. After such a lunch, I couldn’t eat again. I stuck to water for the rest of the day, and only at about 9pm did I have another mince pie (they need to be eaten before they go stale). Couldn’t possibly eat another thing.
I weigh myself every day. I know you’re not supposed to so that, but it helps keep me focused from day to day. On Christmas morning I had already put on 4lb in the week due to additional snacking and the Christmas Eve curry we’d eaten the night before. On Boxing Day the scales of doom said that I’d actually lost 1lb since Christmas morning.
I’m not going to obsess about going on a diet just yet as there’s too much food in the house to consume yet. But once the overindulgence is done it’ll be time to refocus, and be more considerate about those who were unable to have a hot Christmas day meal.
This Christmas for bellringers, like everyone else, is very different. We would have ordinarily have rung every night this week for the various Carol Services, as well as practice night and Sunday Service. Instead, we’re at home, watching TV.
Over the last few months we’ve gone from ringing 5 bells, the two of us and a family of 3, alternating with another group of three, at socially distanced sides of the ringing chamber, to just me and him ringing 2 bells for 3 short bursts totalling 15 minutes.
A few weeks ago it looked like we might have been able to ring 5 bells again for Christmas as restrictions were being relaxed, but then restrictions tightened again, so on Christmas morning it’ll just be me and him again.
The cathedral isn’t even able to have a congregation, which seems so weird considering g it’s one of the biggest days in the liturgical calendar, but health and safety comes first. The choir prerecorded singing and Nine Lessons and Carols were prerecorded and streamed on social media. A shame there wasn’t any bells at the beginning. They already have some recordings we sent earlier in the year, so they could have done.
We shall ring our 2 bells on Christmas morning, so some semblance of tradition. I suspect that the only people to hear us will be the verger and preacher in the Cathedral and the local seagulls and pigeons. But we shall herald the arrival of Christmas Day.
Have as merry a Christmas as you can and stay healthy.
Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself 