Simon has been away at a conference in Paris this week, which has often meant for a quiet week on the handbell front at Albany Quadrant.  Not so this week, where I did Visiting Bands 4: Penrith; Skill-building Pays Off, and a slightly surprising touch of Plain Bob Minor.

It started on Sunday, when I travelled down to Penrith for a peal attempt of Yorkshire Royal.  This was a date that had gotten half-organised before Simon realised he wasn't even going to be in the country, a bit forgotten about, and then resurrected last week.  It all got a bit spicy when Simon Percy (the other Simon) rocked up not realising we were ringing on ten!  After some hasty revision on his part, we had a go.  It was brave but not really stable enough. 

After some discussion, we decided that this was an rare opportunity to have a practice on 10, so we rang a couple of plain courses to pin the method down, had a cup of tea and went for a quarter.  It took us two goes because I manage to swap my bells and not notice it was coming round - quite embarassing. 

By the end of all that practice, the rhythm and steadiness was dramatically better, and for once the scheduling gods looked favourably upon us for another attempt.  So Thursday found me back on the M6 to Penrith, where we scored a peal of Yorkshire Royal, without very much fuss at all.  It was Julia's first handbell peal as Conductor, and she was calm and exact throughout, even though we did offer her a couple of conducting challenges.  It was great fun, and I'm hoping I might get asked back.

In the meantime, we took advantage of our increased numbers in the Albany Quadrant band to ring a quarter at our usual Monday evening meet.  Angela wanted to ring a memorial quarter before a funeral the next day, so we opted for Yorkshire Major, which I called.  It was really nice to ring something we all knew well and could ring confidently.  The last year or so going back to basics and building more breadth in our skills (ringing pairs we weren't used to, sharing out the conducting) showed real benefit here. 

Finally, this afternoon I had a surprise visit from Thomas and Anna Perrins, who were passing through Glasgow on their way to visiting friends further south.  Over lunch we compared lockdown ringing stories and discussed the Great Kent Barrier.  Then we persuaded Dorothy to set aside her History revision to ring a couple of touches of Bob Minor for a quick address grab.  Such fun.....