Hello! It's been a fun week ringing in new places; on Tuesday I went to Offenham to join the practice with some of the lovely ringers from Evesham. The bells were great and I rang St Simon's for the first time:
It's nice to have reached the stage of "look at the line for a minute and then ring it," which I couldn't have done a year ago. It's similar to Plain Bob Doubles, the first method I (and many others!) learned, and the touches are the same, i.e. when a "bob" is called the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place bells rotate (2 becomes 3, 3 becomes 4, and 4 becomes 2). Do that 3 times and you're back to the start after 120 changes.
Then on Friday I went to ring in Pebworth with a few familiar faces from earlier in the week (it's a small crowd), and met Neil who ran the practice and was just delightful. Incredibly warm and welcoming, excited about ringing and sharing it with others — he gave me a few crib sheets of methods to learn, variations on Plain Bob as above, and dropped me in the deep end with some touches of St Martin's. Just like St Simon's above, but doing places at the front instead of dodging:
And this weekend I've been in Wiltshire, and went to ring in Corsham this morning but nobody was there! The vicar and organist were lovely though, wholesome vicar energy, and the churchyard was beautiful.
And this afternoon at Lacock Abbey, the photographer Martin Parr had an exhibition with photos from the town, including one of the local ringers:
Until next Sunday!
- Nick