Terrible Eyesight, Great Memory

I'm really not sure I like this getting old thing.  Everything starts to get a bit loose and saggy, especially muscles and its the muscles you can't see that seem to fare worse than any others.  It starts slowly.  First you find yourself avoiding the kid's trampoline, you loosen the belt of your trousers even though you aren't eating any more, you look in the mirror to find your face is a few inches lower than it was last time you looked and then the eye muscles cause you to think your arms have suddenly got shorter.

My eyesight has been terrible since I was about 12 when trees suddenly stopped having leaves and were painted with a sponge effect green and so I am used to the regular visit to the opticians but the Long Suffering Husband is a bit of a eye test virgin.

This week we have both visited the opticians, both to discover that our eyesight is considerably worse.  I now can't see to read with my glasses on, my distance vision is apparently down 50% on what it was and the astigmatism in my right eye now not only stops me putting displays up straight but makes Os look like Ds.  The Long Suffering Husband after nearly 50 years of better than 20:20 vision now needs reading glasses, that can't be chosen from the twirly stand in the library.

I'm never quite sure how exact the science of getting the right glasses is.  They try so many lenses, asking, "is that better or worse?" and after a while they all look the same and you want to say, "Can you go back to the first one," but that seems a little rude after all the work they've done.  The other thing about the eye test is that they show you the same letters over and over again.  The LSH was amazed at this and quite honestly told the optician that it didn't matter whether he could see the letters or not because he knew they were      LP E D because that's what she showed him last time. I would never have been that brave.  When we compared notes on our eye tests we were asked to look at different things.  He didn't have to look at the O on the red and green for about 3 hours until he could see one that was perfectly round.  I ended up pretending to have seen an equally perfectly round O on both colours.

The LSH had a test where he had to say whether lines were the same length.  They never were.  The optician said, "so how much difference is there in the lines?" and he told her that there was about 0.5mm  difference.  "That's the same!" she said.  Then she showed him another and there was about 0.3mm difference in that one.  The optician was staggered.  The LSH was outraged, "If you want me to see lines of the same length then you have to show me lines of the same length."  I don't suppose the poor optician is used to working with design engineers, who see the world in millimeters. 

Although, I wasn't argumentative during the test I did refuse varifocals. I told him that everyone I know has tried them recently hasn't got on with them.  He said that they couldn't have had them properly fitted and that he could guarantee mine would work.  Then  I said that I don't read looking down.  The optician was confused but I can't be the only person to read in bed, lying on my side or to read on the beach with the book above my head to block out the sun.

I tried to explain that as a musician I do most of my reading straight on.  He asked what instrument I played and when I said the flute he said I could just learn to put the music stand lower.  I'm not convinced that would make me a better player.  "I could just play everything from memory," I joked.  He clapped his hands and said, "YES".  I decided not to joke again and told him I also play the piano and you just have to put the music in front of  you.  He said that I could experiment with the stool height.  I could but then I would need longer arms and if I had longer arms I wouldn't need varifocals in the first place!

I hate choosing new glasses too.  It's almost impossible because you can't see what you look like.