We had a good crack at Cambridge Maximus on Monday, but didn't quite get to the end of a quarter. Nevertheless, it was a satisfying evening, as it's a while since we've tried it and usually we have struggled to ring a plain course. We've booked another attempt next Thursday, which should have a good chance of success as we will all be more confident from the beginning.

I called sH sW sW sH, the idea being to start with a plain course and call the sH if we got that far. Then sW leads to the coursing order 24536, which is nice because it produces 2345s at the back for an easy audible check that no-one has swapped. The calling keeps 3-4 in the 3-4 position and gives 5-6 a course of 3-4 position. The only drawback is that three full courses is a little on the long side at 1584.

We rang two courses and then broke down a couple of leads into the third course. I'm not sure what happened - maybe just fatigue. The ringing became a little rough with some trips, then there was lagging at the back of the change and some too-fast leading, and suddenly it was impossible to tell where the beginning and end of the change were and we all lost track of what we were doing.

One encouraging point was that there were very few instances of bells dropping in too early in the change. All the recent 10-bell ringing must have done us some good, although we still have some way to go before we are equally confident on 12.