In the face of tonsilitis, winter vomiting bug, holiday schedules, the midwinter bellringing blues and the continued absence of our increasingly awesome head conductor, we met again to ring handbells with Marcus.

(I know it is April and therefore technically spring.  But, you know, only technically.  The body clock is saying 'Hello! still hibernating here!'.  Yes, it is still pretty cold).

This time we followed our now standard routine and went for a quarter of Yorkshire, which, as previously agreed, Jonathan called and Angela conducted.  It worked quite well, and we dragged it round.  It wasn't perfect, and it took a few nervous starts to get properly going.  After each hesitation, we recovered speed and rhythm and pushed on, and everyone was quite pleased. It turns out that it was probably Marcus' first in that method off the tenors - or at least the first time 'for flipping ages'.

So, these days we are all feeling pretty confident ringing Yorkshire, nevertheless, there are still things to learn about it and about its structure.  There are still ways to apply oneself to being a more confident ringer, and providing a good structure for any less confident ringer.  Everyone last night had a chance to flex some new muscles, within the framework of a pretty comfortable method.  It is true:  going back to basics is never a waste of time.

It was just left to find an appropriate footnote to send up with the quarter - to show Simon we are still thinking of him.  After spending a ridiculous amount of time with various wordings, we came up with a silly verse:

Scottish Association
Glasgow
1 Albany Quadrant
Monday 1 April 2013
1280 Yorkshire Surprise Major
1-2   Angela H Deakin
3-4   Tina R Stoecklin
5-6   Marcus A Wheel
7-8   Jonathan S Frye (C)

For Simon Gay,

who is away:

we have stayed

on course today!

Oh, and the midwinter bellringing blues?  That is really a tower bell thing.  We'll solve that too, eventually.