By: Blonde Two
I don’t really like bells. Being a teacher, you have to put up with a bell telling you when to talk, when to stop talking, when to eat, when to stop eating and when you can’t go to the loo (which is most of the time). Whilst cycling the Camel Trail however, I saw the positive side of bell-action.
A bell, I discovered, is a really friendly way of letting fellow cyclists (not often I can say that) or walkers know that you are coming up behind them and want to either go past or not scare them.
Blonde One and I were discussing bells the other day, when we were walking along Dartmoor’s South Hessary Tor path. This path is very popular with cyclists and walkers alike and, on busy days, there is some important sharing to be done. It is difficult to share however, when you don’t know that somebody else is there. A bell solves this issue far better than the cheeriest, ‘Good morning,’ as it can be heard from further away and avoids ‘jumping’ issues because a cyclist has taken you by surprise.
Blonde One has a bell attached to her key ring. I enjoy listening to it when we are walking; particularly when we are walking together in the dark. Maybe she should jump up and down a bit when we are approaching other people.
I remember lovely cowbells in Switzerland when I was 11 (QUITE a long time ago) and coming down the mountain on the rack and pinion railway with green lightning flickering all round us. Some of the bells were really big, deep and low and others much smaller and higher in pitch.