Wandering how to align your unique gift idea so that it tells the right time?

The pointy thing is called a gnomon and it is this that casts the shadow that enables you to tell the time. It should point north (or south if you’re in the southern hemisphere) and needs to do so fairly precisely for your sundial to be accurate.

There are a couple of ways to ensure your gnomon points north:

1. Use a compass. This is not very precise, but at least you don’t have to wait for a sunny day. You should bear in mind that the compass points to magnetic north, so if you want to be as accurate as possible you should make a correction for magnetic deviation. This varies according to where you are in the country. The best place to find out what this is for where you live is to use a local ordnance survey map.

2. Mark a shadow at the exact time of local noon. The shadow must be cast by a true vertical object, such as a plumb line or a pole aligned vertically with a spirit level.

Remember that the sun travels 15º westwards in one hour, and thus travels 1º westwards every four minutes. The time on your watch must be corrected for this. For example, at Lowestoft (which is the easternmost point of England at 1º45E), local noon is exactly 7 minutes earlier than noon in Greenwich. Penzance in the far West of England is at 5º33W, and local noon there is 22 minutes and 12 seconds later than at Greenwich.