Solstice Preparations

Days are passing and the Winter Solstice and (eek!) my birthday approaches. By then I'll be back in Ireland with Pamela and M for Christmas and the New Year, so aside of everything else that is happening, I'm getting my Christmas clothes together, views of which will have to wait until I'm over there. I can say it'll be a green Christmas - of sequins and velvet for going out. I've also found an old (20+ years) brown dress that I may also take as my diet has been working (and continues).

Having made what I thought were 'au courant' decisions, I then read that tartan is 'in' this year, with the Grauniad reviewer dismissing sequins (oh, dear!) and illustrating a tartan dress from Joanie, one of my quirky dress suppliers. I wasn't going to go mad, but remembered I had a Joanie tartan dress from some years ago. It didn't take long to find it ... it doesn't have the frilly shoulders that seem to have been popular over the last coupe of years, but it's tartan! It did need 'freshening up' and so I spent a while washing and ironing it which wasn't that easy as, apart from the sleeves, it's fully cotton lined.

All these preps are tricky at the moment with one good eye and one wonky eye. It is quite strange, waking up in the morning and reaching for spectacles that aren't there. It's two weeks since the op that generated my surreal movie thoughts. Today, I finish the antibiotic+steroid  eyedrops and move onto two weeks of just steroid eyedrops. I was driving after five days, once my brain had  compensated sufficiently for the changes in eyesight, which is just as well, given the prospect of the drive to Holyhead in a couple of weeks and the stuff I have to do in between at Pauline's flat.

It has taken a long, long time to rid Pauline's flat of 20+ years of hoarding, but now it's in a state that refurbishment can be carried out which needs to be done before letting it out to family early next year, so choices of things like worktops, flooring etc. have to be made and ordered for fitting in January.

That'll be the time my other eye is done so it'll be at least February before I get new glasses. Until then I won't be wearing new prescription glasses and have to consider what I need to do to appear reasonable for photos (the increasing availability of large paper sacks may help!) That may sound odd, but glasses have helped disguise a lot of issues - ageing skin, the effects of  BCC affecting my facial symmetry, as well as dermatitis problems affecting my face and eyelids! That's not even mentioning the fact that my eyebrows are now white! I could be disparaging about getting old, but hey! what's the alternative?