OLD FOGEY

I've finally given in and admitted that I need a new pair of specs, and these have to be bi-focals. Not that I mind wearing specs, can't see a dang thing without them, but bifocals are definitely a sign of an aging, decrepit person (only joking, haha).

I can't remember what they call the flavour of crap eyesight I have. I can see close things pretty well, but it all goes fuzzy if it's more than 5 or 6 metres away. Up until recently I could also see close-up stuff while wearing my specs. But for the last six months or so, I have not been able to clearly read anything up close while wearing them. I can walk around the supermarket OK, but can't read a label on a can - it's a bit of a problem when you have a basket of shopping in one hand, your mobile phone in the other, and you absolutely have to know what's in the can you just picked up. You need a fourth hand, you see, so that you can remove your specs.

So I trudged along to the eye-doctor this morning, chose some fairly ordinary frames, and then went into the little back room where they point some very expensive machinery at your eyes. This technology always amazes me. I remember the olden days when you put a hand over one eye and tried to read a chart with letters on it, then did the same with the other eye. How do they test people who can't read? I always wondered.

And getting speccytuckles in the olden days was such a palaver! They cost the earth, they looked like poo (especially if you were poor and had to get the National Health ones), and they took about six months to make.

Anyway, my new lenses are going to be made by rocket-scientists in Germany, which is hardly surprising given the price. I have to wait two weeks for them. And they're not bifocals anymore, they are progressives - there's no line dividing the main bit from the bottom bit.

So, decent eyesight by Christmas!