Virtually everything in my home is old, pre-used, pre-loved..... but one side effect of this is that sometimes we have furniture that brings something of its past to us. In other words, it's haunted.
For example, we have an old welsh longcase clock in our front room. Mr Penry loves clocks, and there's nothing much he cannot do with them, but this one (we call it Henry) has defeated even his ingenuity.
The problem is that the clock stops at 2.46 precisely, every morning. At 2.46 in the afternoon, it's fine, which rather rules out a mechanical problem affecting the way the hands turn. Mr Penry puts the clock back at the right time, and it stops again at 2.46 in the morning. He puts it right again, it's fine in the afternoon.
What is really interesting however, is that if he merely restarts the clock, without correcting the time, then it keeps going.
In other words, if the time is correct, the clock stops. If the time is wrong, it keeps going.
There is no sound mechanical reason why this should be so. Mechanical problems (particularly with a clock of this age, where the mechanism is actually pretty straightforward) are logical, and even if you can't always correct them, you can at least see why they're happening.
Our clock Henry, has clearly been deeply traumatised at some point. I just wish he could bring himself to tell us what it is.....
