Saturday 19th October was the day of the rescheduled branch outing (following cancellation of the outing in March due to snow).
The first tower of the day was Brightwalton, Berkshire – a fairly light 6. Only 4 ringers had arrived by the start time so we rang up the back 4 and hoped we would have more ringers joining us later. We started plain hunt on 4 and then Kathryn, Anthony B and Sally arrived to boost our number. We rang up the treble and two and then proceeded to ring some plain courses of Grandsire Doubles and call changes before our time was up.
Moving on to the next tower on some very countrified roads we arrived at Chieveley with my car sporting a punctured rear tyre…nice L shaped hole. Well that is what a spare is for though space saving ones aren’t that good really! After a rather continental style ring up of the back six we rang call changes and plain courses of Grandsire Doubles again. We then rang down and proceeded to the Hare And Hounds Hotel in Speen for lunch. I was supposed to have collected menu choices and phoned our order through, but the tyre fiasco had blocked it from my mind. Luckily with only 10 people to feed (seven ringers, one non-ringing husband, and two children) the food order didn’t take too long.
We next rang at the church in Speen – another six. We rang call changes and plain courses of Grandsire Doubles again.
Our final tower was the other side of Newbury – the ten of Thatcham (though we only rang the front six). These bells were the nicest bells of the day and we rang call changes and plain courses of Grandsire Doubles again. Before the end I had to leave to get my tyre fixed before the trip back to Bicester – a bit of googling had located a Kwik Fit in Newbury!
My thanks to Hilary, Anne, Kathryn, Sally, John and Anthony B for joining “Bicester Branch on tour”, for the villages for the use of their bells (and patience with our ringing up and down) and for the non-ringers (John, Samuel & Grace) who came to enjoy the day out and the pub lunch. Hopefully we can encourage more ringers to join us on future outings.
The next branch event is in just two days.. A special practice at Bicester on Monday night. Hopefully we will get enough ringers to ring Plain Bob Minor (and very unlikely Oxford TB Minor).