After our successful and unproblematic peal of 4-spliced with Julia, we had a sharp reminder that we really do have a lot of ground to cover to be as competent as we want to be.  Frankly, there is nothing like a bit of minor ringing to really bring the ego to heel.

Yes, we had yet another go at ringing 41 Surprise Minor, and we were really pretty bad at it - worse, actually than our last, late evening, attempt in June.  We didn't just fail to get it, we really failed to get reasonably started.  Simon took it very hard.  He confessed later that he felt we had turned a corner with one peal and were going to ride a wave of handbell success forever more.  So, reality hurt a bit.  Plus, we are going to have to schedule another whole day to try for it again.

To add insult to this, we reunited our weekly band, and resumed our quest for a quarter of London.   We nearly got it, and had a huge fail IN THE LAST LEAD.  How can you not recover the last lead, you might wonder?  Especially as we had recovered from me being swapped more than once (ahem) and ringing the same lead twice in a row.  Well, possibly the answer lies in there somewhere.

Next stop, Cambridge Royal.  This is a little treat, as Nick Jones was passing through on his way back to Fort William.  Off we start, and keep ringing until it is finished:

Glasgow
1 Albany Quadrant
Sunday 19 August 2012
1440 Cambridge Surprise Royal
1-2   Angela H Deakin
3-4   Simon J Gay (C)
5-6   Nicholas W Jones
7-8   Jonathan S Frye
9-10   Tina R Stoecklin

It was a bit hard for most of us, and it was not without mistakes, but everyone held to their lines and didn't get distracted by someone else getting out of sync with themselves.  It was a good effort.  Afterwards we had a go at some Stedman Caters and 8-spliced Major.  We are the basically-ok-although-not-quite-perfect-Champions......

So, we can't really ring minor and London is still a bit of a stretch.  But we can ring better than we could last year.  We should keep remembering that.