Oh dear, it's six months since I've written a blog! That's mainly because we haven't been doing much ringing, due to difficulties with getting the band together - everyone has been quite occupied with other things, including the day job and other ringing activities.
Things are looking up though, as we have managed two quarters in the last few weeks: one of Bristol Royal and one of Bristol Major.
The Bristol Royal showed signs of rustiness, but we got through it. As usual I called sW, sH, sW, sH which keeps 3-4 in the 3-4 position while 5-5 ring the 5-6 and 3-4 positions. It's a little easier for handbells than the classic W, H, W, H in which both 3-4 and 5-6 also ring the 7-8 position. Curiously, both compositions also work for Bristol Maximus, with a length of 1344 instead of 1280.
The Bristol Major was the first quarter, as far as we know, at a new address in Inveraray: 1 Black's Land, which is a flat that Tina and I bought last autumn. We're sticking with a distinctive address of Number 1. Hopefully it will be the first of many. We were a little worried about disturbing the upstairs neighbour, so we rang the Taylor set which are quieter, but we discovered afterwards that she had been out during the quarter.
For Bristol Major I have often tended to call this composition:
W H ---- 2 1 1 2 ---- 2 part
which is a well-known standard that's also true to Kent, Oxford and Belfast. But today I called this one:
W H ---- 1 1 2 2 ---- 2 part
which is more musical. I think I became aware of it when Peter called it last year. It's even (slightly) more musical to start with the second line. It isn't true to Kent, Oxford or Belfast though.
I've always liked Chesterfield, and I think it's a good candidate for including in the Surprise Major repertoire as an introduction to wrong-place methods. I encountered it as part of Crosland's spliced series. Actually it occurs in two series by Richard Crosland: a series from 4 to 12 methods, which I rang...