Time on their hands

The clock on Norwich City Hall froze up in the cold weather and hasn't worked since. Today a team of abseilers was at work removing the hands as part of the repair process.


I've done a bit of abseiling myself. The first time was when I was 15 or 16, on a school CCF summer camp at Folkestone. There we abseiled down a cliff. Great fun, but it was all over in an instant.


Then, more recently, I abseiled down the side of a church tower. There's something exciting about climbing over the edge a hundred feet above ground, trusting in the rope, its anchorage and karabiners. Again, I reached the ground all too quickly. Well, not THAT quickly!


Until you see a human figure next to them for scale, you have no idea how big the clock hands are. They had to remove them from all four clock faces.

I'm looking forward to the clock running again, in about a month. The hours are struck with a very satisfying bong.