Dials – derrickjknight

Winter Quarters

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN CLUSTERS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.

Fibre optic broadband installation takes place in the exchange, and we cannot obtain a projected time for the work. It could be as late as midnight. James Peacock will therefore bring the router tomorrow morning. So the uploading struggles continue today.

Today’s fresh blooms in the rose garden are those of Crown Princess Margareta; and the honeysuckle on the entrance arch is under the reasonable impression that Spring has arrived.

This afternoon we visited Dials on the bottom corner of Quay Street, Lymington, to buy a Christmas present;

then walked down to the quayside. A friendly young fisherman I have featured both in Lymington and in Mudeford, was steering his little boat into dock. I wonder if his

and this one are kinds of coracle.

My young friend explained that he spends the period from the winter months to Easter at Lymington, because this calmer harbour is much safer than the other, which is exposed to the open sea. Crab pots, ropes, and buoys are neatly piled on the quay.

There was no other activity on the water with its forest of masts,

except for that of mallards and gulls ignoring the signs forbidding diving and mooring.

This evening we enjoyed a second helping of Hordle Chinese Take Away’s delicious food. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I chose Doom Bar.

Phases Of The Moon

Last night I finished reading Josephine Tey’s finely crafted novel ‘Brat Farrar’. What was intriguing about this work was that we knew from the outset that the eponymous character was a fraudulently claiming to be a long lost, presumed dead, scion of the Ashby family. The mystery was how long he would be able to carry it off. Having been well-schooled in the final twists of the wonderful little stories of Bruce Goodman at weaveaweb.wordpress.com I was quite pleased to have guessed the two in this one that made sense of the whole story. Tey is an accomplished writer whose prose flows most elegantly. Her sentences are of appropriately varied lengths, her characterisation insightful, and her construction impeccable.

My Folio Society edition features an introduction by Ruth Rendell and illustrations by J. Richard Allen, one of which graces the front board.

Martin Fairhurst of Dials brought and set up Jackie’s grandfather clock this morning. The chime has a very pretty tinkling sound.

It is great fun to have the man-in-the moon lurking behind clouds on the face of our newly acquired clock. But, as made apparent in an essay dated 3/99 by Charles Probst, on the website of Charles Edwin Inc, these representations of the phases of the moon had a valuable practical purpose. I have paraphrased extracts from Mr. Probst’s work, and adapted the text to our specific example.

Using a mechanical clock’s display to mark the state of the moon’s phase is an old and common tradition among makers of clocks from virtually every country. Lunar displays on clocks are known in Germany from the end of the 16^th century. When long-case clocks for homeowners in England became popular in the late 17th century, street and road lighting for travel at night hardly existed anywhere. If one wanted to have friends over or travel out, one had to know when moonlight would be available. Also near the end of the 17^th century, the English Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, worked out his tables showing that the moon’s phases were closely linked to the regular rise and fall of the tides. Since few coastal streams had bridges, it was useful to know when a coach could ford a stream and keep the owner and his powder dry, and a clock could provide the information.

The lunar cycle starts at the new moon with no man-in-the-moon face showing on the clock, and progresses to the full face showing on the 15th day, the full moon, and back to no face again as the moon wanes.

Our lunar dial is partially concealed on each side of its opening in the main dial plate by semi-circular “humps” that allow the painted face to emerge slowly just as the real moon goes out of and back into the earth’s shadow. The humps contain maps of the eastern and western hemispheres. Today’s moon being a 12.3% waning crescent, it is barely visible behind the right hand hump.

Brass had been engraved to produce the dials until painted ones emerged in England about 1772.

The young lady decorating our example, made by Thomas de Grachy of Jersey between 1822 and 1834, sports a contemporary period dress.

such as those still favoured by Kate Greenaway in her book illustrations some fifty or so years later.

The bottom dial is a calendar one. We are not sure how to read it.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy Thai chicken with sweet potato, runner beans and carrots, followed by custard tarts. She finished the sauvignon blanc and I drank Jean Truffot bourgogne hautes cotes de suits 2012.

Clocks And Whelks

This afternoon Jackie drove us to Lymington, where our two clocks were now ready.

We parked in Gosport Street and walked down Quay Hill to Dials. The iron barriers on the kerbside ensure that careless photographers cannot step back into the road for wider close-ups.

Loose Ends, in the left foreground of this photograph, stands next to New Forest Ice Cream Parlour. The ice cream is sold all around the forest.

Next in line is Jack Rabbits Barber & Shop. Much of the town centre dates from Georgian and Victorian times, the buildings of which have been retained.

The quaintly cobbled Quay Hill runs steeply down to the left of this street. Dials is situated at the bottom right hand corner.

Fascinating as are the shops, some of the buildings, like these, are private houses.

At the bottom of the hill, next to Dials, is The Old Alarm, where, obscured by the gentleman’s head, is a notice advertising a flat in the building. From the early 19th century, Lymington had a thriving shipbuilding industry, particularly associated with Thomas Inman, builder of the schooner Alarm, which famously raced the American yacht America in 1851.

This was the first time Jackie had accompanied me to the clock shop. She liked the inside as much as I did, and I had a sneaky plan.

I knew she would fall in love with the grandfather clocks. I left her to do just that while I settled up for Mum’s carriage clock, and Martin returned the wall clock in which he had secured the face which had caused the problem, and for which he made no charge.

Then I bought her favourite, the one with the moon’s phases charted. This marvel was made in Jersey in 1822. It will be delivered and set up in two days time. That’s birthday and Christmas sorted.

After this, Jackie carried the repaired clocks back up the hill to the car whilst I wandered down to the quay, where

I once again met the young fisherman in yellow trousers who I had photographed at Mudeford Quay. This time, he and his colleagues were unloading bags of whelks.

I then took advantage of the sale at Blades and bought myself a pair of trousers. They were navy blue, not yellow.

This evening we enjoyed second helpings of Hordle Chinese Take Away’s meal, with which we both drank Cimarosa sauvignon blanc 2014.