Time

My house is a mess. I have half-completed projects everywhere. I am drowning in an ocean of glue, varnish, paint and paper... although I can think of worse ways to go. My garlic chives have finally emerged into the light, and my carrots stalks have little carroty frills on them. The first whispers of autumn are here; I can feel the slight chill in the air when the sun isn't looking, the earlier nights... I'm planning on ignoring it as long as possible, then going into hibernation. It is still summer dammit!

I decided to return in this blog to an upcycling project that I did a few years ago, probably my favourite upcycle. It isn't that the idea is unique or difficult, but just that the object means a lot to me. This record belonged to my Grandad. It has Sunrise Serenade on it by Glenn Miller, and I'm listening to it as I write this: the rasp of the trumpet against the brass band, the insistent beat of the music with that discordant clutter of notes. The music has an unmistakable inter-war feeling to it.

This record my Grandad had in the 1930s when he was younger than I am now, which makes it 80 years old or more. I can  imagine him sitting near the player, moving the needle over, and listening to the first notes. By the time my parents inherited it, it was scratched beyond repair; time had taken the music out of the record. But objects contain the shadows of the past, the echoes of voices, events, places where they have lain. They are a link to people who have gone, and people who will come. The record is a reminder of days when people owned their own music and played it on record players in an unconnected world.  

I turned the record into the clock you can see in the photo. It is a really simple process: drill a hole in the centre for the clock mechanism (you can buy clock parts online really cheaply); paint the hands the colour you want, and super glue a bracket onto the back so it can hang on the wall. I painted dots on for the numbers because it didn't really need anything else, it is simple, elegant and beautiful, and it ticks like a real clock.

Blogging about a clock made me think about time, and specifically my favourite Winnie the Pooh quote, because of course there is a Winnie the Pooh quote for every eventuality:

"What day is it?" asked Pooh,

"It's today," squeaked Piglet.

"My favourite day," said Pooh. 

Because,in the end all we actually have is today.