Tempus Fugit

Today

After a night in which the hands on the bathroom clock twirled continuously, carrying us well into the next decade, we decided that it has to be stopped. It's obviously got its programming knickers in a twist and simply can't be trusted. As it cost all of a tenner, chucking it out and buying new seems the sensible thing.

It's curious; clocks don't merely record the passage of time, they seem also to be creating it. I think that's why digital clocks are less popular than analogue - you can't watch time pass.

There are times when the clock hands just don't seem to move; others when you glance up again in what seems like five minutes, and three hours have passed.

The worst occasions for time dragging are night times, when daylight doesn't seem to want to come, and waiting for transport, especially planes, only beaten by the tedium of long-haul flights. No wonder they keep offering you food, drink and duty-free - you have to pass the time somehow. Oh yes, and a trial I no longer have to undergo, children's parties each of which always seemed to represent the longest three hours of my life to date.

In My Day

I think it's true that time seems to pass more slowly when you are a child. It's probably because you've so little experience that each moment is packed full of new things.

Like most children, I anticipated future events like birthdays and Christmas with longing and they never seemed to get any closer. Then, suddenly, with a whoosh! like an approaching express train, they were here and gone, leaving only a faint smell and sense of passing tumult.

Some things certainly seemed to last forever. The nights when I just didn't sleep. I listened to all the noises our great house was capable of making, watched the street-lit shadows on my windows, read all the old Reader's Digests with which the shelves in my room were stacked, and willed the first rays of daylight to appear.

Certain classes at school - Hockey which I hated, and maths. Why wouldn't the hands on the clock move? And why, in art lessons, did they move so fast that I felt I'd only just got into my stride when the bell went?

And there are the long moments. I remember one at school in a French lesson. Somehow I'd got myself into the "A" stream for French, although I was only average elsewhere. We had a hatchet-faced teacher - Miss Salkeld by name - and I was surrounded by the local 11-plus creme de la creme. We were studying tenses. "Hands up those who think that this sentence uses the perfect tense," said Miss S. A forest of hands went up. "And hands up those who think it's the imperfect." One hand went up - mine. There was I, imperfect amongst the perfect. The next five seconds lasted about two hours. Then the teacher spoke. "Julia," said Miss S deliberately "has the distinction..." the time lengthened to about a fortnight. I was not only wrong, but about to be humiliated....."of being the only one who is right." Suddenly time caught up and the rest of the lesson passed in a flash.

What I don't like is the feeling that my life is also passing in a flash.