We have set aside the coming weekend for intensive practice of the 23-spliced methods, starting on Friday evening and continuing for as long as we can manage. Eventually we will have to stop so that we can go tower-bell ringing on Sunday evening.

We lost the current quarter of spliced (Preston, Ashtead, Uxbridge, Cray, Rutland, Bristol) again last Monday, so that's the first item of business. After that we need to get to grips with Whalley, first on its own and then in spliced. We hope we can practise all the remaining methods to some degree during the weekend; most of them are not difficult, but we have to remember them all at once.

For me, this project is emphasising the difference between knowing a method well enough to ring it in tower, and having the extra depth of knowledge necessary to ring it on handbells. At each change of method, it's not just a question of recalling the line - we have to load the whole repertoire of tips and tricks for ringing it on handbells.

We've all been busy learning the methods this week, so we'll let you know how it goes at the weekend.