Today I got out needle and thread and made a new strap for my watch.

My diary archives tell me that it was on 4th July 1998 when I last did this. I had been advised by a doctor that wearing a watch constricting my wrist might have been contributing to the wrist pains I had at the time, and after trying various other solutions (e.g. things that weren't actually watches, or just getting good at reading other people's watches upside down very quickly when their wrists turned towards me) I hit on the plan of making a custom strap which velcroed round my belt and had a little loop to fit to the watch. This turned out to be a great idea; I haven't had those wrist pains in years, so I could in principle go back to wearing a watch on my wrist, but I really wouldn't want to any more. It's very convenient not to have to take it off to wash up, and having my watch attached to my trousers makes it incredibly difficult to accidentally leave it at home or anywhere else.

That custom watch strap was the very first thing I ever sewed. I had to more or less teach myself to sew in the course of making it, and my diary archive also records that I sewed my thumb to it in the process. Given that, I think, it's a reasonably decent result that it's lasted until today, when I finally decided it was so close to falling apart that I didn't trust it not to fail suddenly and drop the watch down a drain, so I sat down and sewed a new one.

I'm not actually sure my sewing has improved all that much in the intervening thirteen years and ten months. I didn't sew myself to anything this time, but the actual stitching is in much the same robust but unaesthetic, purely functional style as it was on the first strap. The only real difference is that this time I made the strap out of leather rather than rucksack strapping, in the hope that it would be both thinner and less prone to unravelling.

So, I wonder how long the new one will last! To do as well as the original, it'll have to survive until March 2026.