Blast from the past

The other day, my parents were busy doing some spring cleaning while I was coping with a mild hangover from a company party the previous night. I didn't really expect to have a productive day, until my dad found this (apologies for the quality of the pics as they have been taken from my phone's camera)-

I couldn't believe it, my old Swatch! This watch had been given to me by my brother in law about 7 years ago. Bio got one too, but he lost his. It was a huge deal for me even at that time as it was my first Swiss watch. Even though I wasn't into watches at the time, I knew Swiss watches were something to be desired. This one had certainly taken a beating over the years it went missing. The strap was literally in pieces and the crystal full of scratches. I was happy to find that the battery hadn't leaked and as far as I could tell, a simple battery change would put the watch back in action.

One thing that bothered me was that the lugs had these extruding parts (sorry, just cant think of a better word) in between them which meant that I couldn't fix a regular strap on it. I know, I know, I should have waited and ordered an original Swatch strap for it, but I was just to excited and wanted to put a NATO on it, so I decided to get rid of them. Arming myself with a pair of pliers and a Swiss knife, I managed to do a decent job in removing them without any damage to the watch.

Unfortunately the NATO I had lying around was not only a size or two too large, but I realized that there just isn't enough space between the body and the spring bar to put one through it. The strap was just too thick for it :(
So finally I had to make do with a thin leather strap, which looks OK, but hey, at least I can wear it on my wrist again :)

Finally a trip to my watch guy and about Rs.200 ($4-5) later, it sprung back to life - everything working perfectly! To think, just a few days ago, I was wishing I had Swatch in my collection, then this one came back to me :)