Disappointing Bong

Bong, as in, chime of a clock.

A while back I got this clock fixed. It's around 130 years old and a little temperamental.

Bear and I finally got around to winding it up. The pendulum needed to be put back on place and we weren't sure which side to wind for the clock and which for the chimes. We wanted to avoid the chimes, as we didn't need sonorous bongs at midnight. The bongs are lovely, deep and mellow, but, according to bear, the clock lost count at 9pm and we only got eight bongs. We had only wound the chimes up a little, so we didn't need to worry about whether it would chime thirteen. It belonged to a member of my mother's family, and therefore all bets are off.

Actually it's a different branch of the family to the Christian Spiritualist Medium. This was the clock presented to one of my male ancesters as he retired after being a butler at the big house in the village for many years. His wife was the housekeeper, and while the butler was apparently fairly harmless, my great-great-grandmother (or some 'great's anyway) was a holy terror. She is the reason that her sons went to sea and her daughter-in-laws kept moving to get away from her. There were six siblings in grandfather's family, and, apart from the twins, they were all born in separate locations.  It was no good. The Duchess always followed them.

On the other hand, their connection with the big house meant that her sons could borrow the money to pay for their studies and exams to get their master's ticket. I don't know how it works now, but it meant that great-grandfather and his brother were able to captain merchant ships. It took them a while to pay it back, though, as it was an expensive business then.

So while the bongs are pretty awesome, they are lacking in number. Bear was also unimpressed to find out that the clock would need winding every night.

Also, I suppose I could call them 'chimes' but they sound like weighty 'bongs' and there is no way on earth that I am referring to inadequate 'dongs'. I may be less rational than normal. The codeine isn't currently helping bear as much as we would like.