A marriage is announced

No, not in the family.  My lot are all happily settled already.  It’s my Dutch wall clock, or rather my mother’s.

It used to be in the large hall of my family home, at the bottom of the stairs.  I have been very fond of it all my life but, for some reason, after my mother’s death, when Al moved into the annexe, it was never hung on the wall here.  I finally – and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have mentioned it before to him – asked our friend Mike if he’d come and check it over for me and hang it.  And come to lunch with Ann too, of course.

Mike was quite surprised to find that it has an 8 day movement, when he’d have expected it to be 30 hour, but when he took it apart he found that the mechanism is not original, but an English replacement, made in Birmingham.  I don’t mind that at all – though a purist would not approve of such a marriage, I’d rather wind the clock once a week than daily.  It always kept good time, so I hope it still will, and it’s in my hall so I can hear it strike and walk past it frequently.  I like the painted face with its Dutch scene – Mike says it was originally made in Friesland  in the Netherlands.

So I’m very happy.  A convivial lunch and a lovely clock on the wall.  And now, my friend Charlotte has arrived and will stay the night.

I’ll take a picture of the clock, but I need to wash the glass first as it’s quite dusty, and take a picture in the light as well.

9 comments on “A marriage is announced

  1. Mike and Ann Horner.

    Hello Zoe. Thank you for a LOVELY lunch, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with the clock, which, in its way is rather an old beauty. Very satisfying to do the necessary repairs and adjustments to a clock like that, and to feel it responding, and getting down to its work again. They’re like us, they last the better for being kept at work.
    Thanks again – love, Mike and Ann.

    Reply
    1. Mike and Ann Horner.

      P.s. The movement is very much a nineteenth century one; so that it has been an eight day clock for at least as long as it was a thirty hour (or possibly even a twelve hour) clock. It IS a marriage, but a happy one.

      Reply
  2. 63mago

    Here’s a clock on the wall & it makes tick-tock. Sometimes guests ask whether the sound would not disturb me. If this happens I really everytime have to figure out about what sound they are talking. I hear it only when its mentioned.

    Reply
  3. Keith

    I found an old clock that someone had dumped in a local beauty spot along with various other household items, including the compulsory old mattress. I took it home and found a wind up key that fitted. To my amazement it worked when I got it levelled up. It is a Westminster Chime and I spent many hours renovating it and restoring it.

    I didn’t bother to bring the mattress home, yeuk.

    Reply
  4. Kipper

    My tall case/grandfather clock was built by my parents from a kit-though your would never know it. I remember the lumber (walnut) being delivered and the wonderful smell. It has Westminster chimes and more than one friend has asked to inherit it.

    Reply
  5. Mike and Ann Horner.

    A long while ago we had a large clock at the top of the stairs (it too was a Dutch clock). It struck the hours on a very large bell which we never heard (well, we never noticed it anyway), but when we had family or guests staying over I had to stop the clock – the strike ALWAYS woke them. Once the guests had gone home, I’d start the clock again, and we went on not noticing it. (familiarity…………..)

    Reply
  6. Z Post author

    Lovely comments, thank you. And yes, Helen, Mike says it’s a very good movement.

    The strike didn’t wake me at all, but I woke just before 7 and stayed in bed quite a long time as it was cold out, and I enjoyed listening to the hourly strike.

    Reply

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