A ringing milestone

Over the last year I have achieved a number of milestones in my bell ringing pastime. This weekend I was home alone so joined the Four Shires Guild for their weekly practice which was held at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Chipping Norton.

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The weather was cold and threatened more snow which may explain why there were only 12 people there, then again closing the road at Moreton in Marsh may have deterred some ringers travelling from the Northwest, I almost turned back myself.

During 2010 I would like to develop enough skill to be able to ring at least one method on 8 bells so the Church of St Mary the Virgin with a nice, easy to ring, peal of 8 bells provided an opportunity to practice. While I rang cover for a number of methods I also got to ring inside and practice. The initial goal I set myself for 2010 was to ring Grandsire Triples and I managed a touch without any mistakes. Striking may have been a bit flaky but I made it through. This was encouraging but not a great milestone as I've been gradually been improving my competence at Grandsire Triples for a couple of months. However, I took the opportunity to try a plain course of Stedman Triples and was rather pleased with myself that I made it through two plain courses on the treble on what was my first ever attempt -- Milestone 1!

I was pretty content with the evening but when the final ring was going to be Plain Bob Major I figured I would give it a go. I can ring Plain Bob Minor and know, in theory, how it extends to Plain Bob Major but as I have already learnt moving from 6 to 8 bells is much harder than might be expected. I made it through a plain course on bell #3, my first ever attempt, again -- Milestone 2! I must admit that I am aware that I did make a mistake but recovered to reach the end.

A really enjoyable evenings ringing and my thanks to those who I rang with for their patience and support.

Good customer service

My experience in recent years of customer service when dealing with product defects has been, at best, mediocre. However, credit where it is dues I have just been the beneficiary of excellent service from Salter. I had a problem with some electronic kitchen scales and asked for advice via their website. After a couple of email interactions to establish what was wrong and to provide proof of purchase they simply shipped me a replacement.

Thanks Katharina!

Central Asia - Yazd

I have arrived in Yazd on my latest trip throgh Central Asia. I started the trip in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and Ashgabat pretty much met my expectations. The enormous, elaborate public buildings that have been built with the new found wealth from selling their energy resources are just a little OTT. However, Ashgabat was only meant to be the jumping off point for gaining an Iranian visa and border entry. Gaining the Visa went ok but the cost for UK Ciizens was higher than for any other national, even more than for Americans, at 152EUR plus 35USD for a 'Letter of Invitation'.
With Visas in hand we set of for the Border about 50km south into the mountains. After about 4.5 hours we were through! A long, but fairly painless exercise. From the border we drove South for about an hour and set up camp on the side of a convenient mountain as the sun was setting. Next day we had a long drive to the Southeast of the Caspian Sea, where we camped again. Neither site was particularly good but broke up the journey to Tehran, which we arrived at the following day.
From Tehran to Yazd was another long drive, this is a big country. However, Yazd is great, last night I slept on the roof of our hotel so that I could see the sunrise. I was woken by the Adhan shortly after 04:00 and did get to see the sun rise over the old town at about 05:10. A nice but not spectacular sun rise. I'll try it again tomorrow before we set of for Persepolis.

Another Bob Minor milestone

I have spent much of this year trying to achieve some level of competence at ringing Plain Bob Minor. I achieved a major milestone by completing a Quarter Peal (recorded on Campanophile) in a time of 40 minutes.

It takes six people to ring Bob Minor and I could not have done it without the kind assistance of five people willing to give up their time to help me ring this for the first time. This is the third time this year that I have rung a Quarter Peal, each of which was a first of a kind for me, and I think that the willingness of people to help others progress is one of the aspects of ringing that I appreciate the most.

I now need to decide what to try and learn next. I am hopeful that I will be able to speed up the rate at which I can learn new things so will attempt to tackle three things in parallel. (1) Consolidate Grandsire Doubles, hopefully this should not prove too difficult of take very long. (2) Learn Grandsire Triples, a more challenging goal since it is rung on 8 bells. (3) Learn another Doubles method, I'm leaning towards Stedman Doubles since it widely rung around here.

Visa for Turkmenistan

The complications of arranging my trip along the Western part of the Silk Route are gradually disappearing. The difficulties I suffered in July are behind me and the original routing through Turkmenistan and Iran is possible again.
My application for a Turkmenistan visa is now in the Embassy for processing and I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything proceeds smoothly.
I'm beginning to look forward to arriving in Ashgabat and starting my journey. The weather should be pretty good and much better than what I would have experienced on my original schedule for July, the Lonely Planet reckon that only the insane or deeply unfortunate find themselves in Ashgabat in July and August, when the temperature can push 50°C.