Surprise minor is still tricky; progress in other areas

Last week we rang a quarter of Plain Bob Major with Colin, which we had not quite managed to complete on handbell day. It went smoothly. For a change, I called this composition, which is a nice one-liner.

1280 Plain Bob Major

W  B  H  23456
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-  2  2  62345
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5 part.
Continuing with the Sunday group, yesterday we got Dorothy back up to ringing Plain Bob Minor on the trebles and started her on 5-6 as well. Jessica is working on touches of Kent. We also had a visit from James Perrins, who was ringing in a peal at Inveraray, and Julia, who wasn't in the peal but joined me on a kayaking trip. On Sunday morning we tried for a peal of seven surprise minor (Cambridge six plus Norwich) but didn't get as far as two extents. I felt I wasn't sufficiently able to recover from my inevitable occasional mistakes. I find it easiest to ring surprise minor by the structure, effectively using the place notation driven by the position of the treble. But if I don't also think about the lines, I don't know what to fit back onto after a mistake. I hope we'll get onto surprise minor with the Sunday afternoon group before too long, which will get us back into practice at it.