Thoughts and Afterthoughts

Pre-School and Post-Retirement Timing

I must have been about five years old when we spent some time visiting my Mother's Aunt Fanny. Around many kitchens then you would find an hourglass shape mounted on a card. It was called an egg timer. I have no idea now how well boiled the eggs were to be, but they would certainly not have been boiled for that nominal hour. I am surprised now that the device was left within my reach, and that I was allowed to play with it. In the era it would have been made of glass, and fragile.

Play with it I did. Many many times I turned it up to start timing. Aunt Fanny would see me and make a remark about what I was cooking this time. What I actually had in mind on each occasion was that this time I was going to watch all the sand flowing through to the end. I never managed it. I do remember deciding that I really must see the end of the process as well as the begining. At least once I started it going and let it run briefly before turning it up the other way and watching a few moments at the end.

Some years later I was rude enough to describe an opponent in debate as having an attention span that was shorter than his reaction time. I should be more careful before being pejorative. More to the current point I suspect I should lock myself in the kitchen any time I start a process in which a pot can boil dry.

Labels: rueful reminiscence

posted by Donald Beag @ 4:58 AM