I Think It's Time

As my eyes took in the information that my beautiful Swatch watch had departed from my wrist (I had to delve for my buried watch amongst my washing that had just been recovered from the dryer) I was a little taken aback.  After putting my watch into hiatus more than a year ago, and buying another 'cheaper' Accurist watch, I suddenly (upon discovering it in my room at home again) fell in love with it all over again.

Its face, a little more abused than the day I bought it at the shiny kiosk in Kings Cross, still looks appealing, mainly because it is so big you can't really miss the time.  This often works very well when I've not yet put in my contact lenses and can't really see anything at all.  Also, the style is just fantastic; around the steel edge of the casing it has every capital city that Swatch deem important to place carefully round the outside.  The cities match up with the 24 hours (on an inner ring) and I'm sure my watch is trying to tell me how many hours they are behind or indeed in front of GMT, which is rather clever for an inanimate object, but I do get rather confused past 12. 

On the main part of the face, 12, 3, 9 stand out in a large, unmistakable font (you know immediately if you've put it on upside down).  The other numbers clearly aren't vital, as they've been replaced by notches - this, I like to think, implies it indicates "the numerate person's" watch.  I can show off that I know my numbers up to 12, and even know what comes between 12 and 3.  If you can't read my watch, you're not as clever as me.  To complicate things further, my watch seconds run round a tiny clock located at the bottom, where the 6 should be displayed. 

Last but not least, is the date situated at the right side.  The only slight flaw in the overwhelming positives gained from having this (for starters, knowing the date), is that when there are only 30 days (or 28, 29 days) in a month, it takes me about a day to notice.  By this time I've told about 10 people that it's the 31st of September, or the 30th of February.  It then takes about 5 minutes trying to remember how to change the date and not the time.  I usually end up winding my watch forward a day, which takes another 5 minutes.

After fondly recalling why I chose this watch, the sad fact remains I can't wear it unless I spend a small fortune on a second leather strap.  The reason for putting it away in the first place was because the strap was beginning to perish too much and it was obvious that if it wasn't replaced it would die a horrible death.  I'm quite ridiculous and refuse to get anything other than a branded Swatch strap. Superglue as an option did run through my mind, but I'm not what you'd call an expert and visions of ruining the whole watch appeared, which were dismissed quickly. 

So, my dilemma seems to be the following; I don't eat for a month and get a replacement strap, or I make a cup of Earl Grey and admire my new Swatch pocket watch.