Update

[poliphilo]

I try again an hour later. It's now 11.00 o'clock. She has of course forgotten her earlier reluctance and is as amenable as a lamb, gets up, puts on her bed jacket and dressing-gown, inserts her hearing aids (all with assistance) and comes downstairs.

I suppose it would be impossible to run our complicated urban civilisation without clocks, but I don't see why those of us who live on its edges- who are old and sleepy and ruralised- need to be so much in thrall to them.