Assault with Battery

My watch stopped a week or so ago. Quite a rare occurence these days isn't it? I reckon I get somewhere between two and three years out of a watch battery. Even that's old tech now. I mentioned it to my career manager and he flashed his watch proudly. It has a small solar cell that keeps it going forever, basically. Doesn't even need sunlight. There's enough oomph in normal office or home lighting to keep it topped up.

Me, I'm still in the dark ages, and I haven't been wearing the watch since it stopped. Faced with a choice of glancing at a bare wrist several times a day, or at a watch set permanently at twenty-to-midnight, I chose the former. Why has this been going on so long? Well since the jeweller's closed down in Chorlton several years ago, it means a trip into town or the Trafford Centre to get the battery changed.

Or does it?

No. Nikki found a place on eBay selling watch batteries. 99p! Or you could buy a pack of six for not much more than a couple of quid, but as I pointed out - seeing as they last for three years, by the time you came to pull another one out of the packet they'd probably all be dead. So anyway, we ordered one. The P&P was twice as much as the battery, but we figured we were still quids in since jewellers charge about five quid and then another couple of quid to fit it.

Great service too - we ordered it yesterday and it arrived today. Fitting it was fairly straightforward. Being a well-made watch the battery is held in by a little arm that was a bit fiddly to get back into place, but I managed it in the end. Then I tried to refit the back. It's a tight fit. A very tight fit. Several times it snapped into place and I thought it was on, but there'd be just a little gap between the backplate and the case, and within a few seconds it would pop off again.

I set the watch carefully on my desk and stood over it, pressing down on both sides of the back with my thumbs. Snap! There. That had done it. Pop! Oh no it hadn't.

This went on for half an hour or so, until I decided I needed more leverage. Using paper tissues to protect the watch from the jaws, I used pliers to try and snap the back into place. But as soon as one side snapped shut, the other side would pop out again. The back has a clearly correct orientation, with a little tab on the side opposite the winder which you use to pop it open, and a gap cut in the bezel on the winder side for the winder shaft to pass underneath, so I knew I was holding it the right way. It just wouldn't shut. I fetched another pair of pliers. With two opposing pliers, and leaning on the handles from a standing position, I still couldn't apply enough leverage to snap the back on. I began to fear that I'd either scratch the case or crack the crystal, so I gave up. Looks like I will need a visit to a jeweller's after all!