The Time Has Come

It came! It came!

Yes I know.  I sound like Sid from Toy Story when the rocket he ordered arrived in the mail.  I can’t help it. I am so excited that the clock I ordered arrived in record time.

It's a dream come true and I honestly did not expect this dream to become a reality.

The dream started when I was a teenager after visiting the house of a family friend in the U.S.  They had a magnificent grandfather clock. The grandfather clock rang on the hour to announce the time. I said to myself, when I grow up, I'd like to have a grandfather clock in my house.  

As the years passed, I realised a grandfather clock was a tad extreme and impractical.  Grandfather clocks are big and heavy, noisy and quite expensive.  So I downgraded my dream to a cuckoo clock.  A cuckoo clock is more practical, I thought.  It is smaller but gets the same job done. I often checked out stores with specialty clocks in the malls while in Manila.  The cuckoo clocks were really quite expensive and once again I pushed the clock dream aside.

When we moved to Australia my clock dreams were somewhat dormant.  Looking for a clock was not something in my mind at all. I was still fascinated with clocks and would often pass by QVB to check out the clocks there.  One of the things I like about work is that our office is located diagonally across Town Hall where the clock in the tower plays the Westminster chime every hour.  Getting to hear the chimes ring always gives me great joy.  

During this last trip to Europe, my clock dream got reignited and redefined when I stayed at my aunt's place.  She has two clocks in the hallway.  There is an old weight driven clock hanging on the wall and a second clock (with the date and day of the week) on the floor.  When I arrived, the clock with the weight on the wall had the wrong time.  I thought it was broken and was being kept for sentimental reasons.  My cousin explained that my aunt was the only one who touches that wall clock.  The next day, I asked my aunt about the wall clock.  "Oh, you just have to pull this one," she said as she moved the weight up and reset the time on the clock.  After that, the wall clock was keeping perfect time and would ring once every hour on the hour while I was there. 

I didn't know such clocks existed.  A clock that rings once every hour...what a concept.  What a beautiful concept!  Obviously I had not done my research. And clearly, I had not really taken my clock dream seriously.  I decided it was high time to change.

My SIL's SIL Sue had found a cuckoo clock at Vinnie's the other year so I knew it was not impossible to find one here in Australia.  I decided since I had managed to keep my expenses down during my  Europe trip, I would check Gumtree and eBay for second hand clocks.  I figured if I didn't actively look for a clock, that dream would never become a reality.  I was certain that I wanted a clock that chimed but did not run on batteries. I was willing to settle for a single chime per hour if the Westminster chime only came in bigger, more expensive clocks.  It could not be too big and heavy because I wanted something that I could put up in one of the existing hooks in  our gypsum board walls.

Needless to say, when I started looking, I discovered there are a lot of chiming clocks available out there.  Unfortunately availability, practicality and affordability seemed to be mutually exclusive.  I wondered if siblings in Europe would be able to find something for me.  Chiming clocks seemed more common in Europe and I knew that both Sunshine and London Eye would be going to Manila before the end of the April.

I checked out numerous ads.  I looked at several sites. I decided on one that I was willing to pursue.  I sent out a message to both Eldest Sis (I thought the company had an office near her) and London Eye (I found the ad in eBay UK).  I asked whether it was feasible for either of them to get the clock for me.  If Eldest Sis got the clock for me, I was willing to wait until we saw each other.  If London Eye ordered it for me, I asked if she could bring it to Manila when she visited so I could get it when I arrived several months later. 

Well, London Eye said she wasn't comfortable packing a clock and she wasn't sure it would arrive if she ordered it for me.  Then Eldest Sis pointed out that the link I had sent indicated the store was in another state but encouraged me to try to get a clock as something that would make me happy. 

Having received that feedback, once again, I was on my own.  But just when I thought my clock dreams were ticking away, the local eBay flashed the clock and once I got the GO-signal from MacGyver, I was on my way to being the new owner of a brand new clock.

We set it up and it chimes beautifully!

Click here to hear the clock chime