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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be amused rather than freaked out? (Woo!!)

383 replies

Elphame · 30/08/2023 15:10

Ok to get the mundane stuff out of the way

No one but DP and me have been in the house since Friday

We’ve lived here 20 years and are the only ones with keys. All spares are where they should be

We have 2 burglars alarms which we set when we go out. They have not been activated.

We have cctv camera front and rear covering all entrances to the house and garden. The only comings and goings recorded are DP and me.

We have 2 dogs

DP never plays practical jokes.

Now the mystery. My lovely heirloom grandfather clock stopped sometime since Monday night. I can’t say exactly when but I noticed this afternoon and asked DP to wind it.

5 minutes later he came into the kitchen looking rather pale and told me that the clock has stopped as the winding chains are missing. Both of them. They are some 8ft long with heavy weights on the ends and to remove them requires some dismantling of the clock as well as knowing how they are fixed.

They are not on the floor of the clock case. They have quite simply vanished.

We’ve gone from WTAF to freaked out, annoyed and now somewhat amused. Clearly something doesn’t like my clock!

I am totalling unable to come up with a rational explanation for this. There just isn’t one that either of us can come up with

OP posts:
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9
Pimpmyfeet · 30/08/2023 22:38

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Your DP has always hated the ticking, he did it and changed the time in the clock. Has he been alone in the house? Would the dogs bark if he got up in the night?

Pocketfullofdogtreats · 30/08/2023 22:39

You didn't mention the cat at first. You overlooked the cat and I bet it knows something.

Gemütlich81 · 30/08/2023 22:40

sparepantsandtoothbrush · 30/08/2023 18:48

Your neighbour's cat got in, couldn't get out again, got tangled around the chains and then ran off when it smelt crab sticks being thrown through a window. Definitely what happened

🤣🤣🤣

Jamtartforme · 30/08/2023 22:46

Following 🕰

Agapornis · 30/08/2023 22:47

Is your cat smart enough to open the door and bat the chain, but stupid enough to get tangled up and run away leaving it to fall off under a sofa or outside? Mine would.

Elphame · 30/08/2023 22:48

BatsHatIsWonky · 30/08/2023 22:00

As much as I'm enjoying this tale ... you're pulling our leg aren't you OP?!

Seriously - I'm really not!

I'm actually quite pissed off. The clock has been in my father's family since around 1860 when it was brought through Snowdonia on a donkey cart. He only gave it to me a couple of months ago and he's bound to notice it's not working fairly soon. I have no idea what I'm going to say....

@FullFatPhil The clock was last serviced in June 2023. We left the old service history in situ and just added the latest receipt (you can just see it on the far right!).

For those asking about the 2 previous incidents. They both happened in the same part of the house. The hall btw is also the dining room. It's a strange layout.

We'd just moved in and the draft from the original Georgian back door was fierce (still is!) so I cut some fabric to make one of those old sausage draught excluders. Left it on the dining table in the hall (actually close to where the clock is now) and went upstairs to get the sewing machine. I came back down and the fabric had vanished. I went back upstairs to see if I'd absent-mindedly taken it with me (although I knew I hadn't). I turned the house upside down looking for that fabric but it never did show up.

The other one rather scared me as I could have been badly hurt - I changed both the lampshades on the landing for some new glass and chrome ones. They were the sort where you take out the bulb, unscrew part of the bulb holder, sandwich the metal fitting between the two parts of the bulb holder, screw it back together and then replace the bulb.

I'd just done the second one and went downstairs into the hallway when there was a loud bag. My new lampshade flew down the stairs and exploded into a million glass shards all over the floor just missing me. Initially I thought I'd just made a mistake in fitting it but no. The bulb holder was still screwed tightly closed, the bulb was in place but the metal bit that I'd just screwed into the holder was on the floor. Again completely impossible.

OP posts:
Judashascomeintosomemoney · 30/08/2023 22:49

Iamacatslave · 30/08/2023 22:20

This has to be a wind up.

Loving your work 😁

PoshPineapple · 30/08/2023 22:54

sparepantsandtoothbrush · 30/08/2023 18:48

Your neighbour's cat got in, couldn't get out again, got tangled around the chains and then ran off when it smelt crab sticks being thrown through a window. Definitely what happened

The chains left the clock to investigate a strange noise they heard. It turned out to be the sound of someone pushing ham through an air vent.

MolkosTeenageAngst · 30/08/2023 22:54

Sleepwalking seems the most likely possibility.

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 30/08/2023 22:55

You put glass and chrome light fittings in a Georgian house? I’d have thrown them downstairs too tbh.

Elphame · 30/08/2023 22:58

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 30/08/2023 22:55

You put glass and chrome light fittings in a Georgian house? I’d have thrown them downstairs too tbh.

😂I guess I did ask for it didn't I!

OP posts:
Luckingfovely · 30/08/2023 23:01

The missing fabric was clearly a dog (or a cat or a mouse) who has taken it away to feather their own nest.

The lampshade was either faulty or just installed a tiny bit off - not quite on the thread - and so cracked or fell.

The clock chains. Could they be wound up to the top somehow? You said you checked the bottom of the clock. If not, then I'm about to break the habit of a lifetime and embrace the woo!

Daffodil18 · 30/08/2023 23:02

You definitely have a ghost in your house. That is too strange and there is no logical explanation. As you’ve only had it 2 months maybe the ghost doesn’t like it.

NannyOggsWhiskyStash · 30/08/2023 23:05

sparepantsandtoothbrush · 30/08/2023 18:48

Your neighbour's cat got in, couldn't get out again, got tangled around the chains and then ran off when it smelt crab sticks being thrown through a window. Definitely what happened

This, definitely this. Please post the mournful picture of a white cat wrapped up in clock chains, ham slices and crab sticks when you find it.

AriannasGuitarCase · 30/08/2023 23:08

I'm not woo at all so I'd honestly be off to the GP to see if I had a brain tumour or something, that was causing my mind to play tricks on me

WarmButteryCrumpets · 30/08/2023 23:13

I'm just looking forward to the click repair man asking you what happened to the old chains when he comes to replace them 😂

It's also very funny that so many people just can't accept anything woo, despite their being endless inexplicable stories in here!

WarmButteryCrumpets · 30/08/2023 23:14

Clock repair man!

BuddhaAtSea · 30/08/2023 23:14

They’ve got to be inside the clock!

Elphame · 30/08/2023 23:16

AriannasGuitarCase · 30/08/2023 23:08

I'm not woo at all so I'd honestly be off to the GP to see if I had a brain tumour or something, that was causing my mind to play tricks on me

In that case DP has the same brain tumour!

@Luckingfovely - That was my first thought but how did the metal ring escape from the closed bulb holder whilst the bulb was in still in place? As well as being held firmly between two halves of the bulb holder (which was still tightly closed) it would also have to go over the bulb which was of a considerably greater diameter than that of the ring. The bulb was still in place and undamaged.

OP posts:
Judashascomeintosomemoney · 30/08/2023 23:20

It’s not woo, it’s science, just string theory. The dining room is on the edge of two parallel universes and things keep slipping through. They will probably slip back one day.

(I’m not being serious)

GammonAndEggs · 30/08/2023 23:27

Hobbes8 · 30/08/2023 22:27

Did the old man die? If so the grandfather clock would have stopped short, never to go again. That’s just a fact.

I think you’ll find that the clock was too tall for the shelf, so it stood on the floor (for 90 years).

krazynutnut · 30/08/2023 23:32

Garihairy · 30/08/2023 18:52

😅

🤣🤣🤣

Zonder · 30/08/2023 23:37

Well you clearly have a ghost in your house who liked the fabric you were going to use, objected to your taste in lampshades, and got fed up of that blinking clock.

justasking111 · 30/08/2023 23:38

Our Labrador definitely has form for making off with things 😂😂

Hungrycaterpillarsmummy · 30/08/2023 23:40

I think DH hates the clock. Probably waking him up