So, next weekend, the BHI will compete in the Newark Dragon Boat Race to raise money for Beaumond House Community Hospice and the Children’s Bereavement Centre. I will be participating, by which I mean volunteering my husband. (It’s the best contribution I can offer, seriously. You don’t want me on your boating team. I can’t even ride a bike.)
One reason for this blog post is to draw your attention to the beautiful dragon clock in the illustration. Based on a Chinese design, it works quite creatively– by fire. A wick is set along the hollow in the dragon’s back and several strings, with weights on both ends, are place horizontally across it at regular intervals. The wick is ignited and as the flame passes down the dragon’s back, it burns through the weighted strings. You can therefore see how much time has passed by how far down the flame has travelled and how many strings have been burned through. The ‘tinking’ sound of the weights falling could even be taken as a kind of chime.
The other reason for this post, though, is to ask for your support in sponsoring the BHI for Beaumond House and the Children’s Bereavement Centre. If you have ever cared for a loved one through a final illness, you’ll know how important the work of a hospice is in providing comfort and dignity. Nobody is denied a place Beaumond House because they can’t pay. It provides its care free of charge to patients and their families, which is all the more reason to support its work. The Children’s Bereavement Centre, which offers counselling and support for children and young people who have lost someone close to them, also does not charge for its core services.
As a horological organisation, we at the BHI are used to measuring and recording time in various imaginative ways. When time begins to run out for ourselves or someone we love, though, there is no way one can ever truly be prepared. Beaumond House and the Children’s Bereavement Centre, though, do everything they can to meet people’s complex physical and emotional needs at these hardest times. Please show them your support.