Thursday.

Been a good, busy day today. Spent most of it finishing off the above quaker clock. I've been working on it for some weeks (on and off), but now it's up and going. It was made about two hundred and fifty years ago, and is one of a small group of fairly primitive clocks made (as the name suggests) by Quaker clock makers. The dials had no engraved decoration (something to do with graven images I should think), and they were made as simple wall clocks, although one very occasionally turns up in a (usually very plain) wooden long case- made a few years after the clock, it's thought, when the owner could afford to have a case made for it. The earlier ones were usually anonymous, it's said because the Quakers felt that it was a vanity to put their name to a clock. This clock was made (in all likelihood) in North Oxfordshire, most probably by a member of the Gilkes family. They are simple little clocks, and not of great value, but they do look well hanging from a beam in a cottage or small farmhouse. This one now has a replacement minute hand (made by your blogger).

I suppose you're all wondering about the (slightly Christmassy) cake in the first photo. It's a bit of a story, but a friend of ours spent Christmas in hospital (on a life support machine part of the time). She's now home and making progress, but when Ann visited her the other day she said that the one thing she'd really missed out on over Christmas was having no Christmas cake. So Ann made her a belated one and I decorated it this morning. Ann took it to her this afternoon, and she was very pleasantly surprised. And pleased.

Goodnight All.