While I was waiting in the chemists for my meds yesterday I was trying on the glasses they have for sale...mainly 'cos they have an offer on, buy one pair get another pair free, ought to go to the opticians really but I was very taken by a bright pink pair with square lenses...we have to have seriously boring frames 'cos of being poor you see. You can buy other frames if you can afford them, but it seems slightly mean to get the free check-up and free lenses and then go and choose a posh pair of frames by Gucci that'll set you back to the tune of hundreds of balls of wool or several yards of Liberty fabric...
And anyway our Optician is ever so slightly off the wall...he's incredibly intense...that ought to be in italics but they won't transfer from Word so you'll have to imagine the emphasis on the 'intense' instead.
The last time I went, he suddenly leant towards me and gripped my arm...have you come across the deserted village he asked...as I was trying to convince myself I could see the little red spot when it was patently clear I couldn't...I was slightly taken aback and said...'Deserted Village?' Then he picked up the little table lamp on his desk and waved it about 'what do you think? this was only €2-99 from Heaton's? Proper lighting is very important he said...
Deserted Village? Excellent book he said...get it from the library...say I told you to...can you see the red spot?
I gave up and confessed I couldn't see the red spot...so he slotted another set of lenses in and twiddled about a bit and I said...what is it about? What? the book...the deserted village...what's it about...can you see it now, he enquired...Oh...the red dot. Just about. Excellent, he said.
People 'phone from all over the world you know...they do? I replied...they think they must be related you see...Ah I said...because of the name...well, they would, I answered.
Himself throws reminder letters for eye tests on the range...says the man is away with the feckin' faeries...
I like him though...I quite like being closeted in a small dark room with someone who is patently as mad as a bag of wet cats...I don't mind when he flits from one subject to another within the same sentence...don't care that a thirty minute consultation invariably lasts an hour while he enquires about my hobbies and then launches into once seeing Mary Queen of Scots embroidery...it's behind glass he says while he's fiddling about with lenses and telling me the perils of steroids and eyesight...all sort of mixed together so you'd swear poor Mary was swallowing steroids and have to remind yourself...no...it's you he's referring to.
As for the Deserted Village...that'll be a story for another day.