Wiping down the kitchen windowsill this afternoon I had to lift an item off in order to wipe underneath it. Every time I look at this item it brings a smile to my face and I thought it worthy of a blog.
If you happened to see the John Lewis Christmas advert this year it might give you an idea how excited Alex was to be giving us our Christmas present. (Alex is our 12 yr old son) he had procured our present all by himself for the very first time. (I wasn’t aware of him having any money to spend, so I presumed he’d made us something).
Come Christmas day, Alex was very excited as he handed us 3 gifts wrapped in newspaper. They were very heavy for their size. I slowly opened the largest of the 3 gifts with trepidation, to reveal some form of pottery. On turning it over I discovered it was a clock…the ugliest clock I had ever owned. I started laughing hysterically and was quickly joined by Mark as he caught a glimpse of it (fortunately Alex thought we were laughing with delight).
At this point Alex started jumping up and down with excitement, shouting ‘guess how much Mum’, ‘guess how much?’ (I heard Mark mumble under his breath ‘please tell me he didn’t pay anything for it’). Through tears of laughter I managed to say ‘I couldn’t possibly guess’.
‘50p Mum, 50p’…(Oh god there was a reason it was 50p. It had 8 cracks in it, where it had been broken and repaired repeatedly! My father further improved its looks by trying to bend the plastic clock hands outwards so the clock would work. To his horror the hands snapped off)
It turned out the school art department was getting rid of pottery pieces left behind from previous years students, and it appears they had the audacity to sell these pieces to influential 12 yr olds. (The students that made these pieces obviously left them behind for a reason.
With tears running down our faces, Mark and I opened the other 2 gifts to find an equally hideous vase and tea-light holder (which had someone else’s name scratched across it) Unfortunately I can’t show you a photo of the vase and tea-light holder as they have been put in to the attic for ‘safe keeping’.
So this repeatedly broken and repaired clock with broken hands has pride of place on my kitchen windowsill to remind me of the hours of laughter it bought (and still does), but more importantly the sense of pride that shone from Alex on giving us our first ever Christmas present without adult supervision (may he never do so again…just kidding, I can’t wait until my Birthday)
But with all my heart I LOVE this clock.
