We now have a regular band for 10-bell projects, as Julia Cater is going to come and ring with us once a month. In July we rang a peal of Yorkshire Royal. Consistently with previous discussion about the relative merits of Cambridge and Yorkshire, we found it trickier than Cambridge. Nevertheless, it was a success at the first attempt, which is always satisfying. I called the composition that we have used for our peals of Cambridge Royal, in which 3-4 and 5-6 only ring two positions each. In comparison with our previous unsuccessful peal attempt of Grandsire Caters, the calls are very infrequent, which makes life much easier.

Later this month we are going for Lincolnshire, which should be easier than Yorkshire; some people argue that it is even easier than Cambridge. Certainly the 5-pull dodges give some stability, and as Graham John explained in his comment on the "Cambridge or Yorkshire" article, there is a simple rule relating dodging and hunting above and below the treble. The same composition is also true to Lincolnshire, so I plan to stick with it.

Looking further ahead, I would like to try London after Lincolnshire. Tina and I rang a plain course last week while we were on holiday with a group of ringers, and it went well. When we were working our way through the standard Surprise Major methods, we found London much more difficult than Bristol, but for Royal I think it will be the other way around because the extra work in London Royal compared with Major consists of straightforward ingredients such as treble bob hunting at the back and Yorkshire places in 7-8. Unfortunately, the Cambridge/Yorkshire/Lincolnshire composition isn't true to London - finding a good handbell composition for London will be the subject of a future article.