Yesterday we had our first session with Sgurr a' Chaorachain. We've rung it in the tower, but not since 2020, and I rang it a bit online in 2021. It looks rather spiky, but most of the spiky parts are good landmarks because they involve many bells simultaneously: the pairs of "big points" at the back, at the beginning and end of the lead, and the points below the treble, which are in the same position as in Bristol.

We rang in practice mode, meaning that anyone can say "stand" at any point, with no questions asked, if they are lost or want to go back and work on a difficult section again. By the end of an hour we had rung every lead of the plain course a few times, but not all joined together. After starting from the beginning several times, we moved on to starting two leads in, and so on.

For me, the trickiest piece of work is the double wrong dodge in 1-2. In the tower it's not a problem, but on handbells it's a question of fitting it in with what the other bell is doing. It seems to be most difficult when the other bell is in 3-4, which means that one of the hardest parts of the entire method is the beginning of the very first lead for the 3-4 pair. Bad luck for Tina! The beginning of 2nd and 3rd place bells for 9-10 is similarly tricky.

The transition from wrong hunting in the frontwork to right treble bob hunting in the backwork also takes a bit of getting used to.

I felt we made good progress, and I thoroughly enjoyed the session.