Roads to Joy

It’s been a bit breezy these past few days, here in the GlenKens, so we’ve been enjoying the wind chimes rather a lot. Compared with our previous life high up on a fellside of the bleak and blustery North Pennines, of course, these southwest Scotland zephyrs are like balm to the resting soul.

I managed to record a sequence of the chimes, earlier this morning, interspersed between birdsong and windblow. I wonder if I can serve the twenty second clip here:

Maybe so!

The sound is so cheerful, so immediate, though it makes us reminisce about our windy life beside our beloved neighbours, our best friends, who gave us the chimes several years ago on the old homestead.

Life goes on, though, doesn’t it. I also wanted to share an experience from the 1st of June, when a friend and I clambered up into the New Galloway Town Hall tower in a mission to ring the two bells on a prompt from a wedding party in a garden below.

We were there in good time, and so we waited for the text message to come through. We’d just about lost hope that we would be able to catch the signal when the word arrived: ‘Go for it!’ So we set to, to pull the old hawser ropes and set the bells ringing.

I managed mine, the larger tenor bell that’s also bonged by a hammer connected to the clock mechanism, but my friend pulled and pulled and no sound emerged. We’d tested the bells out a few weeks earlier, so what could have gone wrong in the meantime? Another tug, and suddenly the rope slithered down through the opening in the ceiling and flumped at my friend’s feet!

Now the sound of two or more bells seems cheerful to my ears, but the sound of one bell feels rather mournful. Not a good peal or sound for a joyous wedding occasion. There was nothing for it but to hand over the rope of the big bell, and to clamber on up to the belfry, scoot across the rickety boards and manipulate the recalcitrant bell with my bare hands.

In the end we managed to get suitable bing-bongs out of the two bells, and the timing seemed good, as my friend worked the rope and I sashayed the bell, and the clapper, back and forth. We didn’t want to raise a fright throughout the village, so we ceased and desisted after a minute or so of happy ringing. I re-attached the rope and dropped it again through the ceiling, so that next time we should be safer with our ringing effort. The clappers could use a bit of WD40, too, at their pivot point, as they seemed rather rusted from disuse.

All in good time, but meanwhile, without any stress, we can sit in our little garden nook and enjoy the lovely sound of bells courtesy of the balmy breeze.