Time, for dinner

We stopped the clock on Sunday, just for an hour – I set a timer on my phone so that we wouldn’t forget to start the pendulum again.  But, though that was all that we did, it didn’t like it.

It’s an old Dutch clock, Mike and Ann came for lunch a couple of years ago and Mike hung (or should that be hanged?) it for us, it having been put aside for a few years for no especial reason.  I’m very fond of it, it was my mother’s.  Mike told us a bit about it – it was altered at one time so that it would go for a week instead of a day, which makes it less historically correct but much more useful.  It’s part of my childhood, I’d never part with it.

But we noticed immediately that it had started to race and was gaining several minutes every hour.  We’d done nothing except, as I said, stop it for an hour and we’ve sometimes done that in the past, wind it up and then stop the pendulum so that it wouldn’t wind down and then stop while we were away.

I altered the screw on the pendulum but it didn’t help much and we thought we’d have to get someone in to look at it, but then I altered it again, and, by a random bit of luck, I did it exactly right.  it’s keeping better time than it ever has before.  I still don’t know how I did it.

The stuffed squid was very good and lasted two meals, but we rather feel that briefly stir-fried, zingily flavoured is the best, and the curry goat was a triumph.  Absolutely lovely and there’s enough there for tomorrow’s dinner too.  And we’ve done two batches of marvellous jalapeño pepper relish (actually, they were doubled up so that’s really four batches) and we’re rather replete right now.  Simple haddock for dinner, except for a shiitake mushroom, white wine and crème frâiche sauce to perk it up.

The first sharp frost of the autumn this morning.  And the winter duvet is going on the bed tomorrow.

2 comments on “Time, for dinner

  1. 63mago

    The first frost … it all looked wintery (?) this evening, the air was cold, wet woods, all shiver inducing.
    I seldom hear the clock marching, no tick-n-tock, just a “clack”, mechanical, electric in a way, despite the fact that it is always there, the machine hangs over the entrance to this room. It is a cheap industrial product, reliable, just doing what it is supposed to do. I could get rid of it without further reflection. And if I should move house, I guess I will.

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  2. Z Post author

    It was the only clock in the house I had to change, all the others happened automatically and they’re silent. My mother had this clock and two others in her sitting room and they all ticked slightly differently. Occasionally, I’d find it very annoying but usually I managed not to notice them. I rather like the routine of winding the clock up now, though.

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