We did a thing

When lockdown #1 began back in March, #bellringing, like so many other things was put on hold. Fortunately, some very clever people thought up RingingRoom, an online virtual belfry that enabled groups of people, from anywhere in the world, to join together to practice.

For a while I wasn’t particularly interested in it, thinking it was a bit too techy for me to get the hang of. But as time went on, and there seemed to be no return to the usual rhythm of practice nights, meetings, quarter peals and peals, I decided to have a closer look.

From some time in May, I invited a small group of my siblings (the ones that ring), my hubby, and some friends, to a regular Thursday evening virtual #bellringing session. Each week we’d try to get the hang of ringing using a keyboard instead of a rope, and learn a different set of visual clues.

One of my siblings has always had it in her head that should could never get the hang of ringing Cambridge Surprise Minor. She had, in the dim and distant past, rung it and even scored a quarter peal of it, but it had never stuck and she rarely had the opportunity to try. I therefore made it an early mission of this group to get her to be ringing it without fuss.

We took a circuitous route, using different methods to introduce different parts of the work and build up gradually. In the meantime, she had also put out a request for anyone else to help her, during her own organised sessions, with extra practice during the daytime.

With this additional help, it wasn’t long before she’d got a plain course sorted and was trying touches. Then someone suggested going for a quarter peal attempt. There were a couple of failed attempts, either technology failures, or brain failures. She eventually changed her day time sessions to a Friday so that I could join in too on my day off.

On our Thursday evening sessions, we have moved on from Cambridge to Ipswich, Primrose and now Norwich. From someone who didn’t think she could ring Surprise Minor methods, she’s now got several under her belt.

It so happened that her hubby had the week off work and it was his birthday on Friday so the suggestion was to try for a quarter peal of Cambridge again. With some trepidation 6 of us gathered, from the comfort of our respective homes and started ringing. It was going very well. Only a few clips here and there but nothing o worry about. There was quite a hiccup quite near the end, but we all stuck with it and managed to come out of it in the right order.

After 49 minutes, a very reasonable quarter peal of Cambridge Surprise Minor was scored. As you might imagine she was really chuffed. Everyone was really pleased to have scored it, especially as a birthday compliment to her hubby too.

Another #bellringing milestone ticked.

Two of my favourite things

With lockdown version 2.0 imminent it seemed rather fortuitous that I have this week off work and we arranged to meet R on her day off, and the weather was on our side too.

A straightforward drive to Surrey, giving R enough time for a bit of a sleep in and to wake up and get ready. We had instructions to deliver a few things. R’s flatmate had to work this afternoon so we only had a brief chance for a hello.

R decided that she would take us for a walk along the Thames Path. They’ve done bits of it between Kingston and Kew but not the whole way. Our plan today was to walk as far as Richmond then decide whether to continue to Kew then get the bus back, or turn around and walk back.

By the time we got to Richmond we decided that is was time for a #latelunch. Having repleated ourselves we agreed to continue on to Kew.

Our journey took us past the Richmond Weir and Teddington Lock. As we were walking back towards the river after lunch we passed the site of Richmond Palace, and I confess to letting out a bit of a squeal whilst taking a photo of the plaque that commemorates the place of so many a Tudor story.

By the time we got to Kew it was dark. We didn’t have to wait long for a bus which stops just around the corner from R’s place.

Given that we may not see her in the flesh again this side of Christmas, I’m so glad that we were able to see her. Thankfulky, she has a protected profession but they are still talking about downsizing during this lockdown, so she’s waiting to hear. Her flatmate will be furloughed again as his job is not protected. Fingers crossed they’ll be OK. I’m glad they have each other and if the tally chart on the fridge was anything to go by, they seem to be good at making their own entertainment. R is winning at hangman, noughts and crosses and pretty much every game they’ve been playing.

My legs are aching but my heart is full, having seen my little girl and seeing for myself that she’s OK.

Just the two of us

With our area in Tier 2 restrictions the #bellringing community is once again advised to not meet in multiple households. So the decision was whether its worth #bellringing just 2 bells.

We went along to the Cathedral anyway. We met the Dean and other clergy who also asked if everything was OK last week as we didn’t ring at all then. We clarified that others had been ill so we’d decided not to ring, and explained that it would just be the 2 of us until restrictions changed.

C did try to chime 2 bells so we could try 3 between us but the musical version was too heavy to keep going, so we decided to stick to ringing the 4th and 5th properly.

We did a few minutes of rounds, ding dong, then swapped places, dong ding, then back again. Then we did some places dodging. Two blows in the same place, dodge, 2 places, then dodge, and kept that going for a while. The finished up with a couple more minutes of ding dong.

Although ringing 2 bells may seem pointless to some, we felt that it was important keep #bellringing going if we could. It seemed to have been welcomed by the Dean.

Fingers crossed these restrictions won’t last long and we can meet some of our friends again.

Spoonerisms & Malapropisms

Someone I overheard the other day said they were dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s. Having realised what she’d said she burst into fits of laughter. It reminded me of some of the words I used to get muddled up as a child.

I remember saying that Dad would need to put the car in the par cark. When we went on holiday I would be packing my sleeping bag and sleeping in my suitcase (although technically possible, not true). And one of my siblings used to call (and still does) the A406 road around Central London the North Circlear.

Even now when I see rabbits along verges I call them Runny Babbits, but that came from trying to be cute with my daughter when she was little.

Other random things that we say but aren’t technically spoonerisms are things like having lemming meringoo poo for pudding.

Apparently Spoonerism Day is on 22 July which I shall endeavour to celebrate next year in full. 😁

Weigh in

I’ve been trying to follow a certain weight loss programme for some time now. After an initial loss of half a stone I just seemed to hover around the same area for a very long time.

This meant that psychologically I felt that the programme wasn’t working for me, so returned to some bad eating habits. I haven’t put any more weight back on so figured that that wasn’t a contributing factor.

Recently my sister sent me a planner book from said programme that she goes to a group for, I do it on line so don’t get access to all the stuff the sell or handout at group. This has prompted me to seriously try and stick to the plan, as much as my lack of fruit eating will allow.

I have been much more conscious of tracking everything I eat, have made conscious decisions on not buying those crisps or sweets on the way passed M&S at work. Then I have written it all in the planner of an evening.

I’m even going out somewhere today that requires me to take my own lunch. It would have been far easier to grab a sandwich, bag of crisps and drink from the shops, but I’ve packed my ryvita, cheese triangles, celery, radish, cucumber and sugarsnap peas instead, with my refillable water bottle.

Weigh in day was today. An epic 4lb loss in a week. 😁 Rather chuffed at that. So, thank you to big sis for sending me the planner and prompting me to take back control.

Optimistic October

Every month I download a copy of the Action for Happiness Calendar. I don’t always do what it suggests but sometimes things are relevant or a good reminder to do something positive. As today is the 1st October, todays new month starts with writing down your most important goals for this month.

OK, where to start….

1. Get new job description – I am aware that a secondment opportunity is in the offing and its something that appeals to me. I know that the JD is being authorised, so the job should be being advertised soon. Need to sharpen up my Expression of Interest notes.

2. Find more ways to spend quality time with C and R – there has been an awful lot of things going on at the moment with work, ringing meetings, talks etc that sometimes it feels that C and I don’t spend any real time being together. Getting to see R now is more difficult too as her working patterns have changed so her days off no longer coincide with mine. I need to give some priority to finding things that we can do together that mean we spend actual time with each other to the exclusion of it being perfunctory, like putting in a new front door. Sure, we will spend time together to do that but it’s a job that needs doing, not something that is necessarily spending quality time together.

3. Focus on some PR activities – as you know I’m the PRO for both my local #bellringing association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers and we need to get some more good news out in the public domain.

4. Bake – I want to carry on with the weekly baking challenge of making something from the collection of magazines that I’ve accumulated.

5. Lose weight – probably counter intuitive given #4, but I really must put more effort into this area instead of just playing at it. My overall health will thank me for it.

There are probably many more smaller ticket things to focus on too, but by spending more time on each of these bigger areas, my whole wellbeing should be much improved and I will feel more resilient and ready to tackle most things.

Disappointment of Cancellation

Gutted to have recieved this email yesterday. I had booked tickets for this event several months ago for step-daughter #1 and I to attend, and even splashed out on VIP tickets to get faster entry, drinks and snacks and a place to sit down and rest our feet. It involves staying at theirs for the weekend, a day of all things cakey, which we both enjoy and lots of shopping, whilst the boys fix a shed or something, lots of good eating, drinking and company.

SD#1 and I were only messaging each other the other day about how we hoped that it wouldn’t get cancelled and were pleased to read about all the precautions they had in place.

Whilst for me and SD#1 it means no fun day out for us, I can’t imagine how the exhibitors, professionals, organisers and competitors must be feeling. So much lost revenue for everyone again. Those competitors who had probably already started work on some of the entries, wasted.

At first I thought about the disappointment of not going to the event this year. They have said that tickets would be automatically carried over to 2021, but then I realised that it could also mean no weekend away and visit with SD#1 at all. Who knows what the rules of meeting up with, staying with or even distanced interaction is going to be come early November.

Hublet and I were planning on taking a few days to journey up and have our first night away from home since the pandemic started. Will need to discuss it with hublet and SD#1 to decide whether we go up there at all now. This makes me feel sad for hublet who won’t have seen his eldest face to face this year at all if that’s the case.

Family time

Since lockdown has prevented meeting up as a large family group, there are several events that we would have normally arranged a gathering for. However, the wonders of technology does mean that we can see and talk to each other, albeit virtually.

Every other Sunday we have a family Skype call with parents, siblings and “the youngsters” i.e. our daughter and nephew, when they are available. We are scattered by distance across various parts of Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Portsmouth, and North Lincolnshire. Our daughter is in Surrey and often has to work at weekends and our nephew is at University and has other things to occupy him.

This week all but our daughter were able to log on together. We had a separate session with R when she got home from work.

It works out really well when J has a list of questions for everybody. That way everyone gets to find out everyone else’s news and updates. The one time that didn’t happen it all descended into chaos with everyone talking over each other. But this week’s was back on track.

Even though we can’t meet up, at least our family still manages to see and talk to each other. I know for many others, even that is not possible.

This week we spent an hour and a half with the larger family chat, then another hour with our daughter catching up on her news. Things are going from strength to strength for her and despite what could have been quite a difficult time for her during lockdown, she’s fallen on her feet and seems really settled now. The wonders of technology means we can see her as well as talk to her and we can see for ourselves that she’s good.

Happy bubba means happy mumma.