Visiting the optician

I had to visit the optician today. I’d struggled to open one of those padded envelopes which arrive through the post containing not a letter but an item, and somehow I managed to semi-pinch myself in the face. No damage done to me because I was after all only opening an envelope, but I did manage to catch my glasses so they ended up on the wonk.  I know everyone is supposed to have a slightly asymmetrical face, but i would have had to look like a model for a portrait by Picasso for my specs to stay on my face.

I do seem to have bad luck with glasses, or maybe I’m just careless – I did run over a pair once, when we were in Northern Ireland, but miraculously they were only slightly flattened and I was able to continue to use them. I’ve slept in glasses before now, reading too late and nodding off, but I’ve managed to straighten bent sides and un-squash the nose pad arms (I had to look up parts of spectacles to see what they are called) and bend the bridge back into shape. However, this morning my specs were so seriously on the wonk that I had to go into town and ask my optician to attend to them.

I was there for a matter of minutes, glasses were returned to me and back on my nose, checked, and I was sent on my way with a friendly smile. I thanked them and left to find a coffee – which of course was in Waterstones, so I did have to have a good browse of the books! I saw several that I fancied, but I have quite a pile of tbr – to be read – beside and under my bed, so I resisted and will return when I’ve made some headway in reducing the ones I have. I enjoyed my coffee, and for once I didn’t see anyone I knew, so I set off to head for home.

I was walking because the car was in for a service, but it’s always enjoyable to stroll home from town. I head along the seafront, and when that ends, I continue along the road which goes past what was the Weston Sanatorium, now the Royal Sands Apartments (very fancy) and then along beside the golf course to Uphill. As you enter the village, you go past a small woodland, variously called the Uphill Woods, the Bluebell Woods, the Plantation or the Donkey Field Woods. You can follow the road round to go into the village and past the school, or you can carry on and turn down a little path beside St Nicholas Church which leads you past ‘the rec’ – the recreation ground and play area. It’s only five minutes from there to home, past the school, past the village shop, past the Victory Hall, through a little pathway to our house.

I nearly always see something interesting as I march along, today I saw President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, paying for a parking ticket (it probably wasn’t actually him as I think he had a rendezvous with the European nations’ leaders.) I also wrote the next chapter of a story I’m only writing in my head – two of the characters from my book “Loving Judah” continue their lives in my imagination. I’ve mentioned this before – sometimes these private sequels become something else, but I don’t think it will in this case!

Safely home and the first thing I did was put the kettle on for a cup of tea, then I had an appointment with my writing room, which I am rearranging! And here I am, sitting by the window, listening to a keep fit class in the Victory Hall, and settling down to writing this evening!

My featured image is of the actor Sir Alec Guinness, in the rôle of George Smiley, in the renowned BBC TV series based on John le Carré’s classic spy novel, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy…’