Yesterday we rang a peal of the Nottingham Eight: London, Bristol, Cambridge, Superlative, Glasgow, Cornwall, Lessness and Cassiobury. I called Graham John's one-part all-the-work composition, and it felt like a real achievement to succeed at the first attempt without it turning into a big project. Most of the ringing was excellent - we had a couple of rough leads near the end, but in general it was confident and trouble-free.

In my previous article about the Nottingham Eight on handbells, I didn't definitively answer the question of how many handbell peals there have been. I have now checked the records, and there have been five:

• 13/6/2001, Caversham (38 Priory Avenue)
  1-2 Bernard F L Groves, 3-4 Graham A C John, 5-6 David C Brown (C), 7-8 Alex F Byrne
• 11/11/2008, Staines (44 Sidney Road)
  1-2 Muffie King, 3-4 David C Brown, 5-6 Richard A Pearce (C), 7-8 Peter R King
• 17/10/2013, Islington (9G Highbury Crescent)
  1-2 Peter J Blight, 3-4 Ruth Blackwell, 5-6 Richard A Pearce (C), 7-8 David G Maynard
• 28/4/2017, Northallerton (19 The Green)
  1-2 Jonathan J F Stokoe, 3-4 Jennifer A Town, 5-6 James W Holdsworth (C), 7-8 Peter J Sanderson
• 7/4/2018, Glasgow (1 Albany Quadrant)
  1-2 Angela H Deakin, 3-4 Tina R Stoecklin, 5-6 Jonathan S Frye, 7-8 Simon J Gay (C)

They were all the Graham John composition, except the one in Northallerton which was a Don Morrison composition.

There's a long way to go before the Nottingham Eight catches up with the Standard Eight on handbells. This is probably because Glasgow is quite difficult on handbells.

We've been discussing the Pickled Egg methods - Cornwall and Lessness are in Simon Linford's selection, but Glasgow and Cassiobury aren't. We found Cornwall a little slippery. It's possible to get out of step with the dodging at the front / hunting at the back and vice versa, and then it's useful to have the treble confirming which is which; as usual, Angela helped us out a few times. Lessness and Cassiobury have some points of similarity, in that the double dodges in 3-4 are in the same place in both methods, which means that they are also in the same position relative to the four-pull dodges at the back.

Tina and I (and the children) are going to visit Penrith later this week, and part of the plan is to ring a peal with Julia Cater and Nick Tithecott. We're going to go for Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland spliced, which is well within our capabilities so we're hoping for a good peal.