still air

The warm still air over the town obviates the necessity for bedclothes, the lack of rain has kept the mosquitos at bay. The sound of  pigeons comes in through the open window, followed by the booming of the big church bells from Saint Martins. Those bells are always early now, the clatter from all the remaining bells in the town follows.

It is six in the morning, the old Telefonbau und Normalzeit clock on the wall agrees with the bells. This is a mechanical clock with a pendulum, the weight is pulled up every few minutes by a magnet actuated by an electric impulse. Unlike the French clocks, where the magnet drives the pendulum directly. The French clocks are more elegant, and will run for years from a single battery. The German Präzisionspendeluhr requires more power for its winding mechanism, and relies on traditional techniques to keep the pendulum swaying.

Two of the seven chairs are now repaired. Understanding how the rattan weave worked took some time and some wasted material. There are techniques involved which cannot be learned from the reading of theory, they are practical in nature and rely on a feeling for the material. Still, the results are improving as time goes on.

The pictures will arrive by post today, there is some excitement now as regards their quality. The laboratory is extraordinarily cheap, there must be disadvantages somewhere. Still, it is good to be able to get prints of the pictures at a reasonable price.

Now it is a quarter pas six in the morning, doesn't time just fly away.