Tuesday, November 02, 2010

A Brighter Outlook on Life

That’s what I expect when I get my new glasses. Reading the newspaper in bed has recently become difficult, so I aimed to have my reading glasses strengthened, but my day ones need changing also. As I couldn’t be without glasses for fortnight I’m having a new pair. Always difficult to choose when one can’t really see the effect without one’s glasses but the nice new optician put me some lenses in to facilitate choosing.

The lightest lenses and the lightest frames and reactolight, varifocals and titanium all shoot the price up but when you consider how important they are to daily life and one’s comfort they are way more important to me than clothes, shoes and handbags.

The good news is the beginnings of a cataract that he noticed last year is dormant and he says my eyesight is better than average FOR MY AGE.

I asked the nice optician if people ever learned the lines of letters by heart but he says he now has a Zapper which changes the lines like changing a TV programme.

Yesterday we had an electrician for half a day to repair our ancient doorbell with connections in each room and a brand new one from Argos. Not surprisingly he failed with the old and pronounced – eventually – the new one to be faulty. He will come again on Monday. The nurses start appearing on Wednesday to take some blood. MTL must have had ‘armfuls’ taken just recently.

Minehead have the great good sense to have the Firework Display on the 4th of November instead of the 5th. Very appropriate because it is MTL’s birthday on the 4th and the eve of his first chemo so we shall try to do something nice and later enjoy the show from the balcony.

We had a moment’s schadenfreude the other day when MTL pointed out a photograph of Sir David Attenborough standing outside his rather nice house on a crazy paving like ours, but in a much worse condition. Quite brightened our day.

Spare a thought for Stephen Fry being attacked by the feminists for some idiotic remark he made about women not liking sex. Come on girls – he is a great wit and is allowed to talk rubbish occasionally. The trouble is he will probably take the diatribe to heart and get upset. But someone has to raise their head above the parapet.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really? Feminists bashed Mr. Fry? OH, for Pete's sake! The loony fringe is in danger of undoing the good feminists did in serious areas, like wages, voting,employment...et cetera.
Fry is quite right - a lot of them DON'Y like sex. Even with each other!

Pat said...

geigerandsporran: what an intriguing name.
I visited your site and was rewarded with a belly laugh at the pusssy cat you tube. Thanks;)

The Unbearable Banishment said...

You're a grandmother and you're getting reading glasses just now? Huzzah! Huzzah! I'm not just a bit jealous.

Dandelion said...

No, I'm sorry, it was hateful and inflamatory what he said about women. The arrogance of the man to think he can pronounce on something he's obviously missed the point of beggars belief. And if he's going to go off crying when people pull him up on it, well, he needs to stop being such a big baby.

I still love him though.

Leigh Russell said...

I've wondered about people learning the sequence letters on an optician's board by heart!
As for Stephen Fry - well, if I was famous I'd probably be jumped on almost every day for saying something rash or downright silly. Fortunately, hardly anyone reads my rantings, and my readers are all friendly good-natured people. But I'm sure Stephen Fry can take it. He might even have decided to stir up some publicity... but that might just be my jaded cynicism talking.

Anonymous said...

Re: Stephen Fry. People are way too touchy these days, always looking for some reason to take offense. It must be an extraordinarily dreary life, when one's only hobby is collecting things which one uses to become offended.

Enjoy the fireworks, BTW, which may or may not be related to Fry's remarks.

[Smiley Thing]

Cheers.

Dandelion said...

In order to be able to learn them by heart, you'd surely have to be able to read them in the first place. Which is more than I can usually manage.

As for Stephen Fry, I think you've hit the nail on the head, Leigh. If one has a massive audience, and if one is an intelligent person, one should know really know better than to spout misogynistic nonsense, surely...

Pat said...

UB: I can't mislead a young man. I've used reading glasses for years. I couldn't wait to use glasses in my forties - I thought they would give me gravitas.
Trouble is the more you use them the more you need them.

Dandelion: whilst I marvel at his wit I tend to take a lot of what he says with a pinch of salt.

Leigh: I'm sure he said it to stir up some controversy but I also think he yearns to be universally loved and genuinely suffers when seriously criticised - as viz when he walked out of Simon Gray's play some years back and ran off to Belgium leaving the play to founder.

Pat said...

Randall: I think I prefer to be an onlooker to verbal fireworks rather than the real thing. I was wondering the other day why I'm a bit of a damp squib at firework parties. Distance lends a little more enchantment.

Dandelion; part of the test has one wearing various lenses so you could see them to learn them but you'd have to have a better memory than yours truly.
Further to what I said to Leigh I think he doesn't always know what's best for him.

Dandelion said...

"The more you use them, the more you need them" - I suspected this from the start, which is why I very often don't bother with mine.

And I think you're right, Pi re. Stephen Fry. This is why I would hate to be famous. You're at too many people's mercy. Why do it, if you know you'll get hurt?

Ms Scarlet said...

I have a wonderful pair of glasses, well, they were wonderful until I accidentally cleaned them with 'Astonish'...
Anyhow - I'm intrigued, must toddle off to see what Mr Fry has been saying...
Sx

Kim Ayres said...

Nothing wrong with glasses, Pat - it gives you much more authority when you can drop them down your nose a bit and glare at someone over the top of them :)

Madame DeFarge said...

I think glasses give one a wonderfully intellectual look. I wear mine for just such a purpose. That, and getting out the house. And I am a member of the very small 'Not Fussed by anything to do with Stephen Fry' club.

Kevin Musgrove said...

I'm going to have to get glasses at some stage soon, there's too big a difference between the long-sighted eye and the short-sighted one these days. I'm putting it off awhile because I don't want to have to get them while I'm still young. :)

Macy said...

Hi Pat! I'm sad enough to want to wear some nice heavy rimmed glasses just to make me look cool and intellectual!

Mind you, I'm cool enough not to care what Mr Fry thinks already...

Charlie said...

I'm glad you're having your eyeglasses seen to because there is a package on its way from the Postal Service.

Eryl said...

You're so right, good specs are much more important than nice shoes. Apart from anything you wouldn't be able to see your nice shoes without the specs. I think I need stronger reading glasses too.

Now I must go and find out exactly what that naughty Fry said.

Pat said...

Dandelion: I think he does it for devilment - like a naughty boy.

Scarlet: what's Astonish? I'd be devastated if I ruined my new glasses.

Kim: oddly I haven't tried the dropping and glaring. I'll have to practice.

Madame D: glad to hear it. There are zillions who hang on to his every utterance.

Pat said...

Kevin: don't put it off too long and get yourself a migraine.

Charlie: oooh I don't deserve it:)

Eryl: in a nutshell: women don't enjoy sex because they don't hang about in public loos and on commons. That's rather a loose nut but the gist is there. I mean who could possibly take that seriously?
46 is round about the time one's eyes start to change IMO.

Pat said...

Macy; beware very heavy glasses. They are quite painful and can leave marks on your nose.
Glad you belong to the too cool to care club:)

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

My mother has a cataract that refuses to grow any more, and she's threatening to have it removed. I feel sorry for her.

Ahhh, some woman probably tried to seduce Stephen Fry's boy-pal and the pal probably enjoyed it, that's what's gotten poor Mr. Fry all fried.

I don't think women should take such things seriously, laugh it off gals, laugh it off.

lom said...

Stephen Fry seems to have a knack for putting his foot in it, a couple of weeks ago he posted photos of the new Harry Potter film and got into trouble, you’ve got to love him

Pat said...

GG: but isn't it good that it refuses to grow? The optician told me as if it were good news. I know people say you can see better afterwards but an eye op isn't something I want particularly. Are her glasses strong enough?
I never thought of Stephen Fry being jealous.

LOM: as someone said: I can live without knowing what Stephen Fry had for breakfast - or words to that effect.

Ms Scarlet said...

Astonish is a oven and worktop cleaner... it's pretty good... but it works by making tiny scratches on the surface!
Good for greasy ovens, not so good for eye glasses!
I accidentally used the same sponge that I'd been using to clean the oven and some traces of Astonish were still on it... that'll teach me to use the first thing that comes to hand.
Sx

Pat said...

Scarlet: ouch!
I was so appalled at the cost of my last glasses (and the new ones) I have been uber careful especially with things like hair spray and perfume. They are ruinous for pearls too. What hazards we face each day:)

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Pat, she says that, for the past 14 years, she's been told [both here and in America] that the cataract isn't growing. Yet she says it causes her eyes to itch, they're runny, she can't see well.

An eye specialist here told her she should get it removed, so I guess it's high time.

Oh, I was just talking tongue-in-cheek about Stephen Fry.