Finally a Wednesday night practice at which there were enough experienced ringers to try Cambridge Major, with a reasonable expectation that we could manage it. In fact there were even enough for one of them to stand behind and give guidance – not for me but for someone else who was not too sure about Cambridge.
So we set off, with me ringing the 3 — dodge 5–6 up, backwork, 5–6 down, 3–4 places down, and on we went, and eventually I got to 5–6 places up, dodge up and down and the back, down to the front, dodge down and up, and just about to start 3–4 places up, when the conductor, a visitor from another tower, called ‘go rounds’. I wasn’t sure what had gone wrong, and we were within about a dozen strokes of the end. How frustrating!
Later in the evening we had another go. This time I chose to ring the 2, just for a bit of variation — start by dodging down with the treble in the middle of the frontwork, and then 3–4 up, double dodge up at the back and single dodge down, 5–6 down, 1–2 up, 3–4 up, places 5–6 up. And in the middle of 5–6 places up I got lost, wondering whether I had dodged with the treble or not. So I meandered up to the back, and hung around there a bit, and then wandered down to the front and dodge around there, and just about put myself right. Then 3–4 places up, and dodging with the treble in the middle confirmed that I was now in the right place <phew>.
So on to the backwork (bracketted by dodges up and down in 5–6), 3–4 places down, treble bob at the front, then at the back, places 5–6 down, dodge 3–4 down, 1–2 down, dodge 5–6 up, single and double dodges at the back, <nearly there now, just keep going>, 3–4 down, onto the frontwork, and here we are dodging with the treble, <steady> and <c’mon conductor> ‘that’s all’. Yes.
As usual, there’s a lot that I could do better — better striking, better dodging, better ropesight, especially in 5–6. And, especially, not getting lost! But on the whole I was quite pleased with myself.