I have been delving into the arcane world of handbell ringing over the last few days, and this morning we attempted a peal of some simple spliced surprise minor. I am extremely grateful for the patience exhibited by handbell ringing demi-god Philip, whose kind words of encouragement and helpful conducting comments kept things together until even he was unable to recover it. We are all much the richer for ringers like these, who selflessly give up their free time to help the grass roots of the art.

I enjoy my free time, and never seem to quite get enough. Giving up peal ringing was very helpful in this area, as I would often find myself clocking hundreds of miles each month to get to peals, which always tended to be mediocre. Somewhere between the one hour and two hour point I would begin to think about all the other things I could be doing with my time.

But even in my keenest peal ringing days, I never contemplated something like this:

http://www.campanophile.co.uk/show.aspx?Code=81302

Sometimes I wonder what goes through other people's heads. I can understand that the mental and physical challenge of ringing 72,000 changes in hand might be appealing to some people, even if it is not for me. But a tediously long peal of minimus, with only one bell each, ringing just three methods, on a miniring...!? I must be getting old - I am sure this is the sort of thing I would have considered cutting edge when I was a lad.

Pricking out
Potting on
Puddling in
Pinching out
Hardening off

These are all terms I have learnt over the last week or so while trying to grow some vegetables from seed. These are my first "babies" to appear - Butternut Squash and Courgette:

It has been a while since I have been bell ringing, but I have ended up committed to a couple of sessions of "Handbell Focus" this week. Cambridge Royal this evening, and Spliced Surprise Major on Thursday. I dusted off my old copy of Abel, to see if I could still ring two bells at the same time to a method... and failed rather pitifully.

The problem was that I seem to have forgotten all the blue lines, since the only real ringing I have done over the last year has been bob doubles at my local tower. Grrr. I had to dig out an old RW diary (three years since I got a new one!) to look up the methods. Oh how the mighty (i.e. me) have fallen.

I have been hard at work in my garden, making good use of my Easter Holidays. My first mission was to construct a new vegetable patch, which involved digging up the turf, putting in a border and filling up with compost. The results of my efforts can be seen below. I am very proud. Hopefully my seeds will start growing soon...

I had no idea this blog was still here, I rather thought someone might have deleted it by now.

So what I have been up to, I hear you ask? Well, I have managed to give up peal ringing, which is a Good Thing. Although I don't ring during the school term time, I have rediscovered the value of attending local practices from time to time, where one's efforts are more appreciated than at the 12 bell tower near here... Apparently, there is little point in the occasional maximus ringer like me turning up, unless I know all the special methods inside out. Right now, I am struggling to even remember the standard 8 surprise major, let alone some of the complex stuff that the local mega-ringers* are aspiring to!

I notice from reading some of my earlier posts that I blogged about membership of the ASCY, a selective London ringing societies of which I am member (after my attempts to join the SRCY met with failure). One of the two people I blacklisted has now been elected - serves me right for not attending recent meetings.

During my absence from the blogsphere, I also managed to get into a bit of a row with the editor of the Ringing World, which (for those of you who are not familiar with it) is probably one of the top 10 weekly ringing periodicals. Apparently, some people like their names to appear in this publication after ringing a peal or a quarter peal. I feel this is unnecessary self-publicity, and would much prefer more articles on grass-roots ringing around the country. Unfortunately, it seems that I have no control over whether or not my name appears after a performance, something I am not happy about.

* There are really only two mega-ringers at GSM; I use the term here loosely

Once again, we rang a handbell peal of Yorkshire Royal at Willingham. It would have been nice to ring a really good peal with everyone on top form, but we still needed too much guidance from the mighty DJP. I think it was better than previous attempts however, so we are making progress.

Unfortunately, I began to develop to wrist problems about halfway through. My parents suffer from joint issues, so it was always inevitable that I would follow suit, but it is a pity that I am only 27 and already having difficulty. Of course, my fellow ringers felt that I was just making excuses for my distinctly average performance, and perhaps there is a grain of truth therein.

Nevertheless, I should like to try ringing a lighter pair to see if that helps, although the tenor was only size 12, so not really massive bells anyway. Of course, I don't suppose playing Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for several hours before a HBP is such a sensible idea... mind you, my PS2 has been playing up ever since Luke Smith damaged it last week, so my GTA days might be limited anyway.

I am now living in my new house in Cambourne, but I popped back chez RAS to pick up my remaining things today. While I was there, I was feeling a bit peckish, but had already moved all my food to my new house. So I decided to take a journey to the McDonald's on the corner - in the 9 months or so I had been staying there, I had neglected to visit this bastion of English culture.

Being vegetarian, trips to fast-food restaurants are usually surprisingly tolerable, since they often have to make the meal freshly for you while you wait. In the past, McDonald's did a fairly decent Vegetable Deluxe (tm) burger, but then replaced it with a passable Quorn Premiere (tm). Neither appears to be on the menu any more - I had to make do with a Deli Style Veggie Melt (tm).

The picture on the menu looked quite appetising; the truth was somewhat different. A soggy, messy, tasteless thing was presented to me, containing what looked like courgette and pepper, but could equally well have been coloured cardboard and paper given the lack of flavour. Like Morgan Spurlock, I bravely soldiered on and consumed the whole thing, despite feeling a bit queasy afterwards. I allowed myself to leave the gunk that had fallen out of the sandwich during consumption however.

As I looked around the restaurant, I noticed that nearly all of the other customers there were at least twice my weight. I am not one for healthy eating as a rule, and am quite happy to eat full fat food because it tends to taste nicer than all the reduced-fat, calorie-free, low-carbohydrate rubbish you get. I don't care that McDonald's meals are high in fat, but I do object to eating the sort of crap they produce and dare to call 'food'.