August 2013

Another year, another Flower Festival, another outstanding display.  How I love the flower festival!  There were some stunning floral displays again this year though it has to be said I was particularly chuffed to see bells making an appearance in some of the arrangements and on the pew ends! 

We were delighted, and actually really honoured, to be asked to take part in the festival.  I gave the matter some serious thought and in the end decided it would be nice to both “ ring in” the festival and to ring it “out” by ringing a quarter peal during the first hour it was open on Thursday and another quarter peal during the last hour before it closed on the Sunday. 

 I then set about searching to see if I could find any methods with appropriate sounding names and, for the Thursday, came up with a method called Fuchsia Festival Bob Minor.  None of us had ever heard of it before, let alone rung it!  On the Sunday we rang a quarter of Superlative Surprise Major – as I just knew the festival was going to be “superlative”!  I’m really pleased to say that we scored both of these quarter peals.

The same Sunday night saw the Swanage bell ringers gather for our summer social event – a BBQ.  We were going to hold it on the Saturday night but, having taken heed of the weather forecast of heavy rain and strong winds, postponed it by 24 hours.  Thank goodness we did!  It’s really nice once in a while to just sit and socialise with each other.

We’ve had a few problems with the new tenor bell clapper.  Initially it sounded really nice but after a while developed an unpleasant harsh sound at handstroke though the backstroke retained its pleasant solid “bong”.  We have turned the clapper round through180 degrees because of some uneven wear and it sounds much better again.   It’s thought there was a fault in the casting of the clapper ball and a new one is being cast for us which will hopefully solve the problem.