Sometimes, tinkering works!

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Two or three years ago I bought a little digital DAB clock radio. I hate noisy alarm clocks, I’m sure being frightened into wakefulness every day is a bad thing and anyway I almost always wake up naturally but then still jump when my partner’s alarm goes off. As back-up I have a light-up alarm which is supposed to wake you with gradually increasing light levels - this works when I have to get up in the dark, but when the mornings are already light it makes no difference. Luckily it also makes various less ‘alarming’ sounds such as trickling water or bird song. Anyway the main issue is getting the girls (especially Big One) up in time for school. I haven’t given them alarm clocks for the same reason and we don’t allow Big One to take her ‘phone to bed with her so she can’t use that. So one of us has to go and wake them up, which we don’t enjoy. So I decided to get a clock radio. I put it on the landing between our bedrooms and tuned it to a classical radio station so we all wake up to some soothing classical music. It has worked really well for about three years - and also introduced the girls to classical music which we don’t generally listen to that much of in day-to-day life. Then suddenly the little button you have to press to set the alarm stopped working. The clock was fine, and the radio, so I could just get up and turn it on myself, but then it was all depending on me waking up which wasn’t much use if I overslept or was away. And my partner is a great sleeper, so if he was going to turn it on he’d need to set an alarm for himself anyway, which would wake me up with a big jump…. I thought I’d have to buy another, but decided to have a look inside just in case there was anything obvious wrong. I took it all to pieces and of course couldn’t see anything broken as it is all just printed circuit boards mounted in a little wood-effect box. And the actual switches below the buttons on the façade seemed OK. So I put it back together and - magic - it works again! Sometimes taking things apart and putting them together again just works. I have no idea why but it’s always worth a try! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.