I thought I was going bonkers

This morning I woke up early. It’s getting light and I lay there in the warm comfort of my bed waiting for my cuckoo-clock that is downstairs in the lounge to strike six.

To my amazement it strikes eighteen!

“Good Heavens!” I think. “It`s never done that before.” I wallow for further half hour while watching a breakfast show on TV. Waiting of course for half –six to strike, my time for getting out of bed.

My cuckoo-clock starts to strike. “One, two, Three…….up to twenty-one!!”

I imagine now that the weights and chains that drive the clock must be laying on the carpet by now, and I have a slight suspicion that the cuckoo has got out and managed to get into my drinks cabinet.

Only when I am up, showered, and staring at my shaving mirror do I realize that I have been listening to a Lourie in the garden next door.

He`s striking twenty-five…