The International festival of carilloneurs

Most of today was given over to entertaining those who have been attending the international conference and festival of carillon players in Perpignan. There they have a carillon of 46 bells. The festival organiser had been asking for some time to visit the only change ringing tower in France and so today we gave them a demonstration and explanation of English change ringing. At their invitation, they treated us to a lunch at the Hotel du Portugal, one of the few hotels that survived the great flood of 1940. We then walked down to the church and gave the fifty or so assembled visitors an explanation of how English bells differ from European bells, how they can be controlled by the ringers and the complexities of method ringing. That is difficult enough to explain in English, even harder in French. Nevertheless, they got the gist of it and asked lots of questions. They obviously really enjoyed their visit as we did welcoming them.