Tick, Tock....

...Goes the clock, and what things shall we see?
(~Mark Gatiss, Night Terrors)

We're back in Hamburg for the night and I'm surrounded by clocks. It's another one of the items my mother-in-law collects. (I've mentioned her puppets before.) She has dozens of beautiful antique clocks around the house. And they're each set at least a few minutes apart so they don't all chime at once. Instead, they ring for several minutes around every hour. And their continuous ticking echoes constantly through every room.

The craftsmanship of these timepieces is remarkable. The clocks are certainly quite valuable. But they drive me bonkers. Every tick of every clock resounds loudly in my ears and the relentless rhythm keeps me awake at night. Usually my mother-in-law stops the loudest clocks when I am visiting. But this time I tried to be nice and told her I was getting used to them - she didn't need to put them to rest.

Fool I was. No rest for me now. Tick tock, it's 11 o'clock.