Seeing clearly

I don't like spectacles. A very small number of people who have huge noses or tiny eyes look much better with specs on. Other people look perfectly nice with specs on, they suit them and have nice enough rest-of-them to allow for the hiding of their eyes.

I am not one of those people. I look and feel yuk with specs on. Some specs are ok, they are relatively discreet and don't take over your head; they can look almost as nice as no specs. These type of specs are not currently fashionable. At all.

Specs in opticians at present are on first glance all pretty much of a muchness. And they all have a big corner on them. They are very much there and they make the place where your eyes are into one big display of Frame. They all look a little Eric Morecombe. While he was brilliant, I have never harboured a desire to look like him.

I discovered a secret last week though. There are specs that have the discreet ok-ness of old stylee specs, but still have the requisite styling to look like they weren't purchased last century. These are the ones that people that still look nice wear. They are not the £59 complete price ones. No. They are the designer ones. The most expensive designer ones.

They don't have a giant corner. They look Nice. They enhance the face instead of uglifying it.

They cost a LOT of money.

I have a pair of £59 complete price specs - the nicest of the whole range - giant corner and all. They were fine when I was a lardy lump and hid behind a huge cloud of hair. Now I have short hair and my face is on display, I have to choose between wearing these and seeing the fine detail of life, or not wearing them and looking relatively ok. Eyesight is not fantastic, but it's just detail. I can legally drive sans specs, but things are a bit soft focus and bland. Contact lenses are out due to having floating retina cells that are more than ready to float off again. Pah.

Solution: squint and see the world in soft focus.

I tried on the really expensive glasses. They do look nice, I want want want them, I want to see properly. But, I have to be bought them due to lack of any money at all. I would be bought them, my husband is not a monster, but I have to demonstrate that I would actually wear them before money will be parted with. I have, I suppose, pout, had a FEW pairs of MOSTLY unworn specs over the years.

So I have to wear the monstrous specs of hideousness.

Don't get me wrong, the look is quite ok. If my hair is done properly, I look sort of trendy and cool; you wouldn't mess with me. It suits the sarcastic element of my personality.

But they don't make me look...erm, er, how to say this without sounding ridiculous... pretty. At all. It's not like I go around normally thinking I'm gorgeous, but it's reassuring to feel a bit nice, get flirted with occasionally, feel feminine. And these specs of doom make me asexual: I don't register on anyone's radar and women are nice to me. My "thing" is my eyes and they are hidden behind frames of gigantic cornerness.

Yes. I am extraordinarily vain. So shoot me.

I hate them. Hate hate hate hate. But I like to see properly and so I need to "earn" nice specs.

Sigh. It's a hard life.

The eyes have it

Day 2 of a 2 day week. Children dispatched to nursery. (Or possibly despatched, confusion reigns). A very short time later, thoughts were being mulled as to what to do. Housework? Watch series 6? Sleep?

Nope. Answer phone, the school number ominously being displayed. Gloopy eye, suspected conjunctivitis, please collect both children immediately and get them to a chemist.

Nooooooooo.

Boots give away free stuff to chiddlers under the minor ailments thing. I registered the boys in 2006 and haven't been back since. Until yesterday, as is the joyous way of life, when I got some cream, and then today. Yes, me again. Different child today! More free stuff please! Ahem.

Eye drops working good, everyone is quite healthy, except for one member of the household who is VERRRRY nervous of eye infections and who therefore has the cleanest hands in Scotland.