The Pocket Watch

This is a story about an old silver pocket watch. It begins in the middle.

My sister gave me the pocket watch last Thursday. She said it had belonged to Joe, our dad. She said our mum gave it to her 28 years ago when dad died.

Aha! Why didn't mum give it to me?

That would be because straight after dad died, mum visited my sister who at that time lived in Scotland. She would have taken the pocket watch to give my sister as a keepsake. She would have said to me, although I don't remember, I'm going to take this pocket watch and give it to your sister, as a keepsake, I'm sure you don't mind. I would have said, no I don't mind, and then begun to wonder if I should mind, since she'd asked.

Unless she didn't ask.

So, the pocket watch remained in Scotland until it came back to Australia with my sister. And it rested in its little blue silk cotton-lined purse for all those years, moving from Adelaide to Port Douglas to Wardell, with her.

Until last Thursday, when she gave it to me, saying, this belonged to dad, I think it was his father's or his grandfather's. Then she opened up the back and showed me the name engraved inside: Samuel Craig. Not dad's name, but his brother's.

Was that dad's father's name, asked my sister. No, I said, his name was Joseph too. Well maybe it belonged to his father's brother, said my sister, or his grandfather. Mum will know.

But when I brought the pocket watch home to Adelaide, and showed it to our mum, she didn't know.

to be continued.......

Bad Timing

What do you think of when you hear the bassoon, the oboe and the piano playing together?
Probably not what I thought when I heard them yesterday. I went to a Lunch Hour Concert with my mum and got a lesson in Bad Timing.

We were sitting in our seats waiting for the concert to begin, when I remembered I hadn't given her the printed copy of an email from my son in Scotland. Instead of putting it in her handbag she began to read it straight away. The seats were filling up fast. My old professor of psychology sat down immediately in front of me.

Oh, said my mum, who hadn't got her hearing aids in, and was reading the bit about how my son is trying to potty train his 19 month old daughter. They're starting very late, she went on loudly. I used to put you on the potty after every feed from when you were a very little baby. Did you? I said, in a midstrength whisper, trying to bring the conversation down to a lower level. And you ALWAYS DID SOMETHING, she ended with conviction.

Normally I would have contested this, and defended the right of my son and daughter-in-law to wait until their daughter began to show some interest in using the potty, but due to the circumstances I was reduced to hissing Yessss. Who wants their old psychology professor to hear such things? Not to mention everybody else.

And so it was that when the bassoon, oboe and piano began to play the delightful strains of a Saint-Saens sonata, some Nussio variations, a duo by Villa-Lobos and a sarabande by Dutilleux, I heard only the sounds of breaking wind and tinkling water, and when it was over, applause seemed highly inappropriate.