I don’t know about you but my entire perception of time appears to have vanished. My days off are endless, my working days fairly swift, the weeks and months not really making sense anymore. On the one hand I don’t know how we ended up near the summer holidays so fast and on the other this has been the longest four months known to man, or woman.  The kids are going to bed so much later they appear to be adults. I’m desperate to get up early but I swing between oversleeping on work days, and waking up far too early with a headache every other day. I haven’t worn a watch in months and mostly judge the time of the day dependent upon how hungry everyone is.

So in a frivolous turn of events it got me thinking about watches – I mean in the absence of anything else to do with my time (see what I did there)…why not?

In the 1980s I had a watch where you could change the colour of the faces by screwing on a plastic ring. All the little rings sat in a case ready for you to decide whether it was a pink or red day. I loved it. There was definitely a casio digital watch in our house at one point, and I also had a Swatch (and frankly would like one now). There were shops that only sold watches. Like there were shops that only sold socks. Strange times.

In the 1990s I wore my Grandad’s watch which I had to wind every day and which didn’t keep the time very well. I also had a brass alarm clock with enormous bells to wake me up. I wound that every evening and the alarm was like someone banging a pan with a spoon next to your head. I also had a pocket watch which I wore with a waistcoat. The whole thing was like I was channelling Peaky Blinders. or maybe that I was born into the wrong century.

In the noughties I had a regular brown with flowers leather strap watch, but also the classic silver bracelet that was also a watch. I hardly wore it and the battery went flat. I bought Paul a watch and gave it to him on his wedding day. It sits pristine in it’s box because it’s only worn on a special suit wearing occasions by which time the battery problem pops up again. He never wears a suit.

Now of course no-one wears a watch unless it can do something other than tell the time. Mine is a Fitbit which monitors how few steps I do each day. Well it would if I could find the charger. Then there’s Apple watches which do everything apart from make your breakfast. The year they appeared we were at a family gathering trying to take a group photo. The first picture included the top of two heads as they looked at their watches working out how to take the picture.

So memories? And what next? Are watches done? Does anyone care? It’s been a long week.

Feature Photo by Kris Atomic on Unsplash