Learning Things

Evening all.
Being the nostalgic sausage that I am, I decided to look back on the things I learnt in 2015. And they're pretty much still useful a year on. With the odd adjustment here and there, they could easily be life tips. If what you wanted to do with your life was not annoy your housemates and avoid becoming Catholic.

But I've been pondering. Many of you will have seen my last post, claiming that I didn't learn much in 2016, and it's sadly true that there were no great revelations regarding pumpkin vampires, or locking the bathroom door. But did I learn anything in 2016 that contradicts what I learnt in 2015? Time to find out:


According to my flatmate, food (specifically a kebab) is better than sex
Said flatmate still believes this, as far as I know. The kebabs really weren't that good.

It's not the ringers that smell of the tower, it's the tower that smells of the ringersStill true.

Vegan cooking can be super easyThe key word here is can. It can also reeeeeaaaally easily go super wrong....

Lock the door when you're in the bath
Since learning this, nobody has walked in on me in the bathroom.
(I may have forgotten this once or twice, but Daniel is a gentleman, and still nobody has walked in on me in the bathroom...)

Tea and sympathy get you a long way
Just make sure it's the way you want to go.

If you reach the age of 30 in north Germany without getting married, you have to sweep the steps of the Rathaus until a young lady comes along and kisses you 
Well, we're going to find out this year, when Daniel turns 30...

"If it ends in 'e' it's probably 'die'" is a lie.
Still a lie.

If you lose one of your Beavers, they are probably in the tent
Still true.

You will get on better with your friends during a four day hike than you will ever in your life again. Ever.
I still get on better with these friends than I ever did previously. I think that working together like that makes it really easy to understand people. And everything we've done since then has been easy in comparison. So, I guess we're just stuck with each other for life now.

That's it I guess. Everything else on the list is either so obviously true it doesn't need repeating, or could possibly need reassessing in the future. But for now, I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie.
This is quite a short post, but I don't really have a lot to say. I just wanted to see whether I was still learning new things.



Emmatt update: Haven't done one of these in a while because there's very little to report. Matt and I are still together (3.5 years in February), and we're still making long distance work through a combination of phone calls, texting, and total, unquestioning trust. There's a plan in the pipeline to try and move in together once I've graduated, but money (as ever) is the key thing holding us back. And anyway, who knows what things will be like in six months' time?

Things I've learnt in 2015

Greetings dear friends and Internet stalkers. It's coming to that time of year again where I look back and ponder what I even did with myself over the last twelve months. As ever, the answer is "not a lot".

Still, I seem to have learnt some things. So here are the top twenty pieces of  ~ahem~ "useful" "knowledge"* I've picked up in 2015. I hope some of them are helful to at least one person at some time in the future.

1. According to my flatmate, food (specifically a kebab) is better than sex
2. It's not the ringers that smell of the tower, it's the tower that smells of the ringers
3. Vegan cooking can be super easy
4. The German for "a really big yurt" is "Super Jurte"
5. If you slice off the end of your thumb, it's probably not bad enough for you to need to go to hospital, just stem the blood flow
6. Lock the door when you're in the bath
7. If you don't know the words, just sing "tractor tractor tractor"
8. Mike the Tiger is the mascot for Louisiana University. He is a real, live tiger
9. Chicken fried chicken exists
10. Tea and sympathy get you a long way
11. If you get bitten by a Catholic, you become a Catholic
12. If you get bitten by the Pope, you become Italian
13. Vegan cheese doesn't melt
14. If you reach the age of 30 in north Germany without getting married, you have to sweep the steps of the Rathaus until a young lady comes along and kisses you [SIDEBAR: This tradition is more common among men, I don't know who kisses women. Maybe Santa]
15. "If it ends in 'e' it's probably 'die'" is a lie.
16. Your housemates will think you're crazy if you try to make the house nicer
17. Your housemates will think you're crazy if you try to use a slow cooker
18. Your housemates will think you're crazy if you try to explain sausage rolls and Christmas Pudding
19. If you lose one of your Beavers, they are probably in the tent
20. You will get on better with your friends during a four day hike than you will ever in your life again. Ever.

Season's Greetings and a happy New Year!

*Some of these "facts" are true and some are utter garbage. I'll leave it to your personal judgement to decide which are which.

For Reference, Next Time You're At A Pub Quiz

Hello my dear children, today I am in Sheffield, and pondering Bell Ringing. Again. Because we're here bell ringing and that's what we ponder.

I thought I'd share with you all today some useful pub quiz knowledge in the form of bell method names. A bell method is the pattern you follow when ringing that tells you when you're supposed to ring your bell and who you should follow. The names of these patterns are a) hilarious, and b) informative. For example, if you're ringing "To the Pub Doubles", it's funny because at some point someone will shout "Go: To The Pub" at you, and informative because you know it'll be rung on five bells.

"How do you know this?", I hear you cry. It's simple really, each number of bells has a different name, which is useful, but doesn't make a lot of sense.

It goes like this:

Three bells: Singles
Four bells: Minimus
Five bells: Doubles
Six bells: Minor
Seven bells: Triples
Eight bells: Major
Nine bells: Caters
Ten bells: Royal
Eleven bells: Cinques
Twelve bells: Maximus

After that people just use numbers, because there are so few places with more than twelve bells that these methods hardly ever get rung.

The best way to remember these is to split them into odd- and even-numbered bell methods. That way, you get nice patterns of:

Singles, Doubles, Triples, Caters (from the French for "four"), Cinques (From the French for "five")

and

Minimus, Minor, Major, Royal, Maximus. Which, if you think about it, is a nice little pattern in itself, with the exception of Royal, which always throws me.

Anyway, I hope this information was interesting, or at least wins you a round in a Pub Quiz at some point.

Much love xx

Sort-Of an Apology. More Clarification, Really

Hey guys! So I realised that my most recent post didn't really make any sense to anyone who wasn't actually with me at the NUA the other weekend, so this post is going to try and clarify some things.

NUA stands for Northern University Association. The bit that doesn't say is "Of Change Ringers" or something similar. The NUA is an annual Bell Ringing event for students and those who wish they were still students. I attended with NUSCR, the Nottingham University/ies Society of Change Ringers. Whilst our membership is actually pretty big, four of us went on this particular trip; that was two Chrises, Esther and myself. We all got called Chris for the weekend to make it easier for people to remember.

The reason I didn't explain any of this in my original post is that the report was adapted from the original (shorter and more boring) report which I wrote for the NUSCR website (found here) and I totally forgot that people other than the aforementioned Chrises and Esther (and Emily) read this blog.

I've been ringing at All Saint's with the university society for about nine weeks now, and I handle the bell properly, most of the time. I'm beginning to get the hang of timing and can sort-of-a-little-bit keep time in rounds (that thing where the bells go ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding in descending order), but only if I'm being severely helped and/or catered to by the other ringers. Fortunately, everyone at NUSCR is really patient and helpful, especially Matthew, Simon, Tom, Chris and Chris, who've been teaching me, and Emma, who acts as my personal demonstrator (perks of being married to the Steeple Keeper, I guess). Everyone else is also excellent, but they've only really had to tolerate my terrible ringing, not my terrible learning.

Basically, NUSCR are some of the nicest people I've ever met, You wouldn't guess from just seeing us at the pub, because we spend the entire time trying to wind each other up, but part of that makes us closer, because we know none of it is really serious. Probably. I hope not.

I'm never serious anyway, but that's just me.

Full and Brutally Honest Review of the NUA 2014

When I left home on Friday, my housemate said, “Have a good time. And I hope that things don’t get too bad when you inevitably end up in A and E.” Fortunately, NUSCR’s trip to NUA 2014 stopped just short of a trip to the hospital…

After several hours of train travel, highly scorched burgers and some overpriced pints, Tall Chris, Short Chris, Esther Chris and myself (Chris) followed a couple of total strangers for half an hour, arriving at a church hall; picked for the weekend’s accommodation for the sole reason of being totally inappropriate. Having been reunited with some old friends, and immediately capturing some new ones, NUSCR asked the fundamental question: “Where’s the booze?”, embarking on what turned into an hour-long beer quest which showed us just how far from any form of civilisation we were. Fortunately, New Friend Hannah took this welcome opportunity to reveal her hidden superpower to locate Co-Ops. (Unfortunately, said “convenience” store had just shut. Points for trying, though!) Friday night was otherwise quite a standard affair, involving much drinking, chatting, and Plain Hunt on Beer before falling asleep on a floor which may have been even less comfortable than anything I have ever slept on before, including Ross.

Saturday started early, with an English breakfast and copious amounts of throat-meltingly strong tea. We arrived at our first tower in St Nicholas in Kenilworth (after what seemed like a year on the bus) where, after a short wait, we successfully rang some rounds. Our next stop was at All Saints in "the Bell Ringing capital of Europe" (don't ask me, ask Helen!) Leamington Spa. After yet another bus ride, we finally arrived in Warwick itself and rang briefly at St Mary's, before embarking on yet another epic bus ride, to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we met Lucy and IPM Dan in (where else?) a pub, before "we" (Chris and our new friends from BUSCR) rang at Holy Trinity Church, described as the best tower of Saturday. The rest of stayed at the pub, and so missed out on that one, what a shame! The final tower of the day was Lillington (where I actually did some ringing!!!) and another tedious bus journey brought us back to base just about, but not quite, in time for dinner. 

And a ceilidh. 

Why didn't I heed the ceilidh warnings? 

We (including Becks and Phill, who deigned us with their presence just after dinner) spent the evening flinging each other around the room as hard and as fast as we could. I swear, I have never had so much fun being disregarded by multiple men. The funniest bit for the spectators was probably Short Chris throwing Becks to the ground and then stomping on her hair, which he maintains was an accident. Yeah, right. As for the dancing, whilst I thoroughly enjoyed Baskets and Strip the Willow (look it up, kids), I actually much preferred the dances where my feet were primarily on the ground; bouncing around the hall on the arm of one Chris or another was enough for me, thank you! This merriment finished at around eleven, having started relatively soon after dinner, giving us many an hour of merriment. Naturally, after this, everyone just stayed up chatting for as long as we could hold our own drinks and ended up in bed shortly before sunrise on Sunday.

Sunday morning was a little more relaxed, as the first church of the day was very nearby at All Saints in Allesley, where a nice man with the key to the bell tower recommended that we try a small local tower with a 300-weight six, which was not on our route. So, naturally, we went off-tour to check it out. Right decision. This tower was described by several people as the best of the weekend, missed by everyone except NUSCR and SUGCR. Personally, I was in no position to comment, having only rung three towers that weekend, and only one other tower ever. How do you even decide what a nice tower is? Unless, like Short Chris at St Nicholas, you have real trouble keeping it up. Most of NUSCR somehow managed to miss the next tower in Stoke, when Phill accidentally drove into Debenham's*, and turned up to the pub early enough for a second breakfast. After a very close call involving a BUSCR member who had to have her legs over her head for quite a while (and not in a good way) in the pub at lunchtime we finally turned up at Coventry Cathedral Tower to ring the final bells of the tour. The Coventry experience also included the opportunity to watch the bells from above, as well as a tour of the amazing bombed-out ruins of the old cathedral, opportunities taken up by many.

NUSCR’s tour ended with five consecutive train journeys to different places, all aiming to get us home to showers (not necessarily our own) and bed. Having essentially been tricked into coming on the NUA, I'm incredibly glad that I was; it has been one of the best experiences of my life, with some of the nicest people I have ever met (and Chris). Having joined Bell Ringing Society on a whim, I have come to the conclusion that it's quite possibly one of the best decisions I have ever made, even if more time is spent at the pub than in the tower(!)

*Phill's driving was not (as Short Chris expected) sufficiently bad enough that we actually ended up parked in the lingerie department of Debenham's, more that we turned into an accidental multi-storey and were too lazy to drive out again.