On Friday, Roger, Simon, Drew and Mike fitted the new (to us) carpet kindly donated by Trisha. This involved a fair bit of preparation work on the floor and door and allowed Simon to show off his shiny electric plane to good effect.
So, the carpet now fits in with Morag’s new cushions, and the redecorated ringing chamber looks very nice for our regular service and ringers and the many visitors to this tower.
Thanks also to Andrew C for the photies…..
Christmas day falling on a Wednesday meant that most of the churches we ring at scheduled their carol services for the Sunday evening. They mostly decided to ring at the same time too. Andrew Clark counted up the available ringers and scheduled ringing at Stepney, Bermondsey, and Rotherhithe which are the churches we regularly ring for service on Sunday mornings. Other years, the carol services have been spread around and we have managed to ring at more of them. This was Eva and Richard’s first carol services, so well done to them.
The weeks leading up to Xmas are usually very busy for DRC ringers and we were happy to ring for other special services at Limehouse, carol service at St George in the East, and Christingle service at Rotherhithe. Christmas Day finds many of our ringers out of London visiting family, but we were able to muster six to ring very nicely at Stepney.
The DRC party was scheduled to start at the Angel ( a regular end point for Bermondsey Tuesday practices) after the Sunday carol services. Trisha was able to get the upstairs room for us and arranged for them to provide food supplemented by fine dessert efforts from Sarah, Elizabeth and Linda.
Andrew L informing the group how many rounds he has bought since the last DRC Xmas party.
Jonathan is making steady progress through the two cases of bottled Sam Smiths beer that the landlord got specially for him. I believe it reaches its sell by date in a few months, so any assistance will be appreciated.
Alison having a crafty nap during a quiet moment
Bg thanks to Gill for organising it this year.
The site has been updated to add the AGM minutes and webmaster report from the recent meeting. Thanks to Gill and Morag for producing them.
The documents are stored in the members’ area so you will need to log on to access it. If you’ve forgotten your password, you can request a new one from the logon screen.
Trisha started it all by delivering the latest surplus clerical carpets from Lambeth Palace to Rotherhithe. If she knew the trouble this would cause, she may have used freecycle instead. If we laid it, this would then be the only clean part of the bell ringing chamber so something had to be done. In a moment of foolishness, aided by a pint of porter at the Angel, Andrew L suggested to Andrew C that the chamber should really be cleaned and painted before a carpet went down because it couldn’t be done afterwards. As we both had a few days leave coming up we agreed to do this over two days and roped in Simon as he has lots of fancy tools and offered an industrial vacuum to play with.
Multitasking Simon painting while balancing on a dodgy stepladder
So the team assembled on a sunny Monday morning and set to. Andrew L vacuumed the staircase, Andrew C cleared out the cupboard, and Simon researched the ethnicities of the various young ladies serving coffee at the Watch House. We all then vacuumed and washed the walls, cupboards, panelling etc of the ringing chamber. Morag turned up to measure for new cushions in the wall seats (technical term needed here please).
Testing out LInda’s failed cake between painting tasks
Tuesday was painting day but not before Simon’s fine effort at changing the light bulbs in the chandelier. This was not possible due to the height of the thing but we had great fun trying to get a long enough ladder up the winding staircase. Eventually the walls were painted, the wood varnished, the cake eaten and everything cleared away.
The decorators between finishing work and heading off for a pint
So, it all looks better to us, but then we would say that wouldn’t we ? As with all decorating, it is good in theory, but in practice just makes the undecorated parts look even worse. So, we just need to get the bell and clock chamber cleaned, the stairs painted, cushions replaced, and carpet laid and we’re done. Any organisers and volunteers will be welcome…..
Thanks to Andrew C and Simon for their efforts, amusing company, and photos.
After Stepney practice, the band relaxes with an old party favourite in the pub.
Kevin generates a beam of light out of his head to the amazement of Jo and Eva
Thanks to Jonathan for bravely capturing the moment.