Pocket watch with chain and banners

The Bramleys came in early this year, so we've been up the ladders since six every morning and I've had no time to write properly. Mum asked me to tell you the chain's gone. Grandad's silver pocket watch came off its link on the stairs the night after the funeral, and she found it under the hall table with the chain in two pieces. I took both to Harold in Faversham, who mends clocks above the chemist. He opened the case with a little hooked tool and showed me the gears inside, all brass and no hurry, and said the mainspring was fine. The chain was beyond him, but a jeweller in Canterbury might solder a new link if we don't mind the join showing.

We don't mind. Mum has taken to winding it every morning before the kettle, and she sets it by the church clock on Sundays and grumbles when it runs fast. I hung it on the nail inside the drying shed, where the windfalls go to sour and the wasps get drunk on them. Yesterday a whole row of Cox went over in the wind, and while I was stacking the crates I heard the tick through the wood and had to stop and listen to it for a minute, like a fool.

The jeweller says he can have it back by the end of September. I've told him there's no rush, because the watch isn't going anywhere and neither are we, not till the picking's done. Come home for it when the frost's on the grass, and bring the good boots.

Love, Nell