On the Road Again!

Well as someone famous once said: Christmas is Coming.  I haven't had an expensive kind of watch for a while. My last "name" watch is a Fossil with stainless steel bracelet and the LCD screen and two displays with the full screen seconds counting down as well as the hands. Sadly this has been junked as the winder mechanism has broken inside and they wanted £55 for the parts plus labour to fix it. The watch hardly worth that.  The strap on the watch that I have been wearing, since I bought it in March 2016, broke this week. The Mudder watch came from Amazon for £10.50.   So three and a half years wasn't too bad.  I went back to Amazon and lo and behold the same sort of Chinese plastic LCD watch is available. Several versions, so I bought one.  The only difference being this one doesn't have any little red trims. The cost? £9.95. Negative inflation at work.  See how long this one lasts. 

After a succession of sub £3 watches from eBay, that may have provided a change but without longevity, I decided to get a new battery for the Casio Waveceptor. Okay, the Chinese could have provided me, postage included, with three watches for the price of a battery, and without a doubt they would have been easier to set the time! The guy in the shop had the old battery out and the new one in and had replaced the seal that allows me to dive to 50m, should I wish, all in a few minutes. Even with the user manual he managed to set the date, but not the time. I keep the manual handy as changing the time from UK to CET is a major operation when on holiday! Even harder coming back! The watch needs setting up to get the time automatically from the atomic clock in Nottingham. Or Frankfurt in Europe. Some four and a half hours later (!) I managed it! I just hope all the pressing of buttons A and B hasn't worn the battery down!

What a marvel. The Chinese seem to be able to make and sell stuff at such low prices. It is far cheaper to buy a watch on eBay than replace batteries on a decent bit of kit! This one was £3.99 inc postage from Hong Kong. Batteries for my Fossil are £3 for the one that powers the seconds counter LCD, and £4.99 for the bigger one that powers the watch and turns the hands. The smaller one lasts about 6 months and the other one about a year. Let's see how this novelty lasts!!