The clocks went forward an hour overnight. It always feels vaguely as though an hour has been stolen from me when the clocks move forward, rather than having a bonus hour when they move back. In future I shall refer to this operation as “procrastination”, which we all know is the thief of time.
On the subject of thieves, Granddaughter Number One lost her glasses the other day, or rather the other night. They disappeared from her bedroom overnight. Eventually she found them … in her kitten’s “bed”, not really a bed but a sort of “room” at the top of one of those climbing towers that cat-lovers buy for their pets. Together with the glasses she found several pairs of socks and one pair of knickers, stolen from the clothes drier. The kitten was making a nest for herself. Quite what purpose the glasses served in such an arrangement remains a mystery.
And on the subject of time, it seems that some time back in the 1930s students removed the hands from the clock of Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge, and replaced them with cardboard ones, which according to the granddaughter of one the perpetrators, worked well until it rained. The cardboard hands were long ago replaced with proper metal ones but now the original hour hand has been returned to the college. The minutes hand is still missing. The aforementioned granddaughter inherited the hour hand from the perpetrator, who died, aged 83, in 1999. So a quarter of century since then the granddaughter, who must be getting on years, has decided to return the hour hand. She must have been having a clear-out and thought it was time to send it back to where it belonged.
Such student “pranks” sound like the kind of thing you might read about in stories of yesteryear. Do students still indulge in such behaviour? I wonder. When we were in our late teens, one fairly regular “prank” perpetrated by young men on their way home from the pub was “gate lifting”. Gates, usually fairly solid wooden gates were removed from their hinges and hung from a nearby lamppost … just for fun, or maybe to upset a cantankerous older neighbour. Modern street-lamps are far too tall for such antics but I wonder if people still steal traffic cones and leave them in preposterous places. Somehow such activities seem rather less obnoxious than sending someone a nasty text message: more like an innocent trick!
I saw a notice somewhere recently who read as follows:
The biggest padel facility in the North of England featuring covered and open-air courts has arrived in Greater Manchester 🎾
A few weeks previously I had seen something going on In Manchester, between Selfridges and one of the entrances to the Arndale Centre, in what I assume is Exchange Square as that is the name of the tram stop. A court, rather like a tennis court was set up and passersby were invited to try a new racket sport: padel. Now, some 15 years ago, when we were arranging to rent a flat in Vigo, Galicia, the landlady pointed out to us that she was leaving her son’s padel rackets in the flat and that we should feel free to use them in the padel court in the gardens of the block of flats. An excellent form of exercise, she assured us. That was the first time we had heard of the sport. We never made us of the rackets. But we did use the swimming pool!
And here it is in Greater Manchester!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment