Eye See

'Your short-sightedness has improved a bit,' says the optician. 'In fact, it says on your record that it improved two years ago but we kept your prescription the same. I'm keeping it the same now. I think your eyes would reject a new prescription.'

I am sitting in the optician's consulting room, my eyes alternating between dry and watering, and seeing flashing lights and images of my retinas every time I blink having run the gamut of eye tests one is subject to these days when you go for a check-up.

I've gone for a check-up because a) it's almost two years since my last test b) I've been fretting about diabetes again especially now my younger brother has to go to the opthalmic hospital every six months to keep a check on the retinopathy that was found at the sight test that led to his diabetes diagnosis and c)I'm having trouble focusing on reading first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

The optician confirms I have now reached 'that age'. That age being the age of reading glasses. But because I am short-sighted, I can actually get away without a reading prescription for the moment, merely by peering beneath or over the top of my current specs. I am rather thrilled I get to do that kooky thing of wearing my specs atop my head, or perched in a marmish way on the tip of my nose. Sometimes I take them off altogether and dangle them coquettishly from the end of my finger, but then Pandora gets all flighty and tries to steal them and run off for a game of 'Hide the Spectacles.'

'But you might find this a bit irritating after a while,' says the optician, I think in a half-hearted attempt to sell me some vari-focals. But we have known each other for more than ten years now, my optician and I, and she knows that I know (having worked for two years as an optical assistant) what the mark-up is on frames and lenses, and that I'll need a pretty huge prescription change to make me part with my cash.

'And my eyes are healthy?' I ask.
'Yes,' she says. 'Periferal vision, pressures, retinas all fine.'

Phew, I think. But it's this business of my eyes not accepting a change in prescription that fascinates me. I don't ask, because I don't want it confirmed that I am, in essence, an awkward cuss, but I think it means that although the physical evidence of a full eye exam suggests my prescription has changed (albeit only a little), my brain won't accept what my eyes are telling it and any changes will be greeted with complaints of fuzziness and nausea.

I've experienced this once before. I was persuaded to try ultra thin lenses because my left eye goes a smidge over -3 dioptres which puts it in the 'slightly thick lens' brigade. I agreed, the lenses were fitted and I spent two days walking about feeling like I was on a ship in a high storm. Ooh, it was very discombobulating. I think the word 'sensitive' was used when I went back and asked for my old lense type to be re-installed. I suspect 'sensitive' was a euphemism for 'bloody minded' or 'awkward' or 'resistant to change.'

Anyway, I'll carry on with the specs I have at the moment and wait until I get annoyed by the up and down spec-bobbing and/or arm-stretching I have to employ to get reading in focus sometimes.

On a different note, this morning I went out to do chicken duties and there wasn't a bee to be seen. Usually there's a little gang of them loitering around the hive entrance, limbering up for the day's efforts, but today, nothing.
'Oh flip,' I thought, immediately believing they'd all cleared off in protest at the installment of Queen Philibert. But then I thought, it is cold this morning. So I went and pressed my ear against the side of the hive (Andy would have had a pink fit as I was sans bee suit, don't tell him), and I could hear a gentle hum coming from within. The kind of hum that suggests waking up in a good mood, padding around the kitchen in fluffy bunny slippers and dressing gown, making a pot of tea, a few rounds of toast and butter, and then going back to bed with a breakfast tray to have a read of the papers and listen to the radio for half an hour.

Or that they are happy with their new Queen and she's busy ordering them about and laying eggs.

Fingers crossed.