Twenty Five Minutes to Five

Don’t take the clock on the wall on face value as every clock in the house has stopped ticking although not all at twenty minutes to nine but at different times. I am starting to think that I am stuck in Ms Havishams’ Satis House, where all the clocks had stopped but you can't stop time—or mildew, mold, and mice.

The words of Pip from The Great Expectations rang through my head “It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.”

But I wasn’t standing in front of Ms Havisham, but Mr Mc Nab, Lynda’s nearly octogenarian dad, and here time hadn’t stopped stop but was going backwards or could I sadly say downhill. After Lynda’s mom crossed over to heaven last year this four bedroom house plus cottage is both stuck in time and destroyed by time. Time is now to stop the backward slide, wind up the clocks or put fresh new batteries in, and start getting this place back into time. And to start living again.

“So!" she said, without being startled or surprised; "the days have worn away, have they?”