I kept thinking I had more time than I had before GrandDaughter2's birthday so I've ended up having to order her present online. I decided I'd buy her a Sylvanian Families doctor's surgery but as it didn't come with a doctor I thought I'd better find the Sylvanian animal that looked most doctor-like.
I was browsing through the selection when I suddenly realised something: I was only looking at males!
I was shocked at myself. I began again and concluded that Granny here looks like the sort of creature I would trust to know what she was doing.
Anyway, where was I?
When I first became a Christian I used to go to a house group (which is what it sounds like) and the thing I remember best, and loved the most, was the tick-tocking of the clock that became especially obvious during quiet times. There was something so controlled and serene about; it instilled in me a wonderful sense of peace.
It's quite difficult to get a clock that ticks these days but over the years I've listened to a few prospective ticker and my grumble has always been the same. "It's ticking too fast."
But this week (okay, it's taken me a while) it occurred to me that clocks should all tick at the same speed. So either I'm remembering it wrongly or the clock in house group was slow. Or maybe time just goes too fast.
* * * * * *
I speak English, I have schoolgirl French, I'm currently learning Welsh, and I have a very small smattering of Italian. (Which means I can count - at least up to ten - in four languages and that must make me poly-something.)
But the instant someone addresses me in a language other than English every word I've ever known flies out of my brain. I mean literally every word, not just the French, Welsh or Italian ones. The only thing that comes out of my mouth is something like, "Sguajij."
Now I come to think of it I struggle to speak sensible sentences in English anyway.
* * * * * *
The final one on my list: songs with meaning.
I was going to ignore this as I couldn't remember what had inspired it but then in the car yesterday I heard a song that didn't have meaning so much as stirred up emotions.
I know I've mentioned before that, after my mum had her brain haemorrhage, I was involved in a car crash on the way home from visiting her in hospital. As a result of that Anne, who at the time was my cousin's girlfriend, and who had offered to drive us, lost an eye. For a short while she was in a room just opposite my mum's in hospital. Howard, her boyfriend/my cousin, was visiting her at the same time I was visiting Mum and when I was chivvied out of Mum's room while they did something medical, I sat in Anne's room to wait.
For some no doubt personal reason, Howard began singing a song that was popular around then. It was called Storm in a Teacup and when I heard the words come on my car radio I switched it off straightaway. "One drop of rain on your window-pane doesn't mean to say that my love for you is dying."
I've just listened to it now without a problem so it must have just have been the unexpectedness and the instant revisiting of that hospital room that led me to switch off. Memories are strange things. I couldn't tell you what I did yesterday - well, I could but I'd have to think - yet other things are so deeply embedded you never forget.
7 comments:
So true about memory. Scraps of conversation from decades ago are still available, while events of the last few weeks are blurred.
I have a ticking kitchen clock and yes, it's a nice sound when I notice it. Often I don't. You tend to blank on routine sounds.
I suspect different size clocks do tick at different speeds, might be because of the size of the mechanical bits. Big, old grandfather clocks have room for large bits, so they can tick slowly. Small, wind-up alarm clocks don't have a lot of room, so they have smaller bits that tick faster, like twice a second.
And with my hearing it's easy to blank routine sounds, Boud.
I would love a grandfather clock, Chuck.
BOTH of the bunnies are VERY cute! The only language that I have any working knowledge of (other than English, which is debatable at times😉) is German…. and there is unfortunately little opportunity to use it here, and truth be told, most of my knowledge of it is in “sciencey” terms that are even less dialogue useful. Spanish would be wonderful to know where I live, but, I am woefully inept at it.
PipeTobacco
Those Sylvanian Bunnies are so cute! I would have loved playing with them when I was a kid.
I don't like it when songs become too closely associated with memories for me, because even memories that started out happy usually morph into bittersweet ones over time.
The ticking of clocks can drive me crazy. I upset Hunky Husband, mightily, a few years ago when I moved his clock (from his grandmother's tavern) from the wall just outside my bedroom - and then when I added insult to injury by stopping the pendulum. Now that I am sharing HH's bedroom, his radio-controlled clock drives me nuts at times. It has a soft, but definite, tick each second that he, of course, cannot hear.
I've had many physicians who were women in the past 50 years, but only one of them dressed anything close to the illustration you give. I remember how quaint I found it that she wore what I considered to be a "house dress" in her work - and that she had knick knacks all over her office. Most of my physicians have chosen to wear some version of pant outfit.
Interesting that you like ticking clocks. Jenny can tolerate ticking clocks in the house generally, but the alarm clocks in the bedroom have to be silent or they stop her sleeping. And silent clocks are hard to find in Belfast, we have to order them online.
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