Large discs

The optic nerve heads or discs in my eyes are larger than normal. The central part of the nerve head has a depression, referred to as a cup and  large optic discs typically have larger cupping because of the absence of

axons in the middle of the disc as the neurons leave the retina in the larger rim tissue of larger discs.

With me so far? Good.

Now, this is significant because this situation can apparently make opticians suspect the presence of glaucoma and then they refer you to the local ophthalmology department for further investigation. In my case, I then attend the hospital every six or twelve months for a couple or three years and am then discharged because I don't have glaucoma. 

This has been happening to me for the past twenty years but, as no-one had explained the process to me until my latest appointment on Thursday, I just thought that each time I was referred, it was because the condition had worsened, although never enough for me to be prescribed medication. This time, however, the nice lady doctor did explain what had been happening. If the pressure readings are above a certain level at the optician's, he automatically refers me to hospital and round we go again. 

"I might as well keep seeing you," she said, "because if I discharge you, the optician will only refer you back again. So I'll see you every 12 to 18 months and if you get fed up with that, just let us know and I'll discharge you again. But at least, if you keep coming and you do develop glaucoma, we will pick it up very early."

OK, fair enough - I suppose...

A lazy Sunday - not!

For months and months, I have been nagging trying to persuade Keith that it would be a good idea to take the rest of the shop stock to an auction to get rid of it. A lot of it has been residing in the garden shed, taking up valuable space and I was anxious to get rid of it one way or another.

I think it's a man thing, but if you stick at it long enough, they do eventually do as you want them to and if you can make them think that it was their idea in the first place, so much the better. So, this morning we set off on our bikes to cycle the three miles to the van hire place (Yes, I did say 'cycle' and 'three miles' in the same sentence - good, eh!) and then drove the van home to clear the shed. 

It's a good van, one of those with a hydraulic lift, so of course, I made sure I rode up and down on it as many times as possible. Second part of the plan was for Keith to drive the van down to the house where Giles is living to clear the rest of the stock from the garage there and tomorrow, he and Giles will drive it all to the auction.

I've been stood down from further operations. I think Keith and Giles probably want to play on the hydraulic lift by themselves.

What I didn't wear today

Today, I came across an article about Poppy Dinsey's blog, which is a photographic record of the outfits she wears every day and is called, unsurprisingly,  What I wore today. Apparently, she started it as part of a 
mission to  wear a different outfit every day and make use of all the many clothes in her wardrobe. Due to its huge success, she is now going to transform it into an 'entire social network for fashion fans to rival Facebook'.
So, ever alert to the possibilities of fame and fortune, I thought I might do my own take on the idea and share with  my millions of readers out there in the ether what I didn't wear.

Today, readers, I was mainly not wearing this, owing to the sun having disappeared and leaving us with thick, grey, dull cloud.
See, my blog even gives you an update on the weather as an added extra!
You don't think it will catch on, do you? Be honest, I can take it...

Rubbish!

This past week, we have had quite a few things delivered, which means quite a lot of packaging to dispose of, mainly cardboard. No problem. Here in Wrexham county we have a large, blue bag for paper and ordinary cardboard and the corrugated stuff goes in the green bin; don't ask me why, I don't really care as long as it's all recycled.

As there was rather a lot of cardboard, I hoped that the poor, overworked binmen - sorry, refuse collectors - would not find it too traumatic to collect it this week.

Round one was the emptying of the green bin. Done.

Round two - the emptying of the green box (wine bottles and, er, wine bottles) plus the blue bag. I noticed from the window that the blue bag had been placed on top of the empty box but still retained a suspiciously firm outline, so I hopped outside to investigate. A large, flattened cardboard box was still in there, plus two toilet roll centres, but I'm prepared to overlook those, so I took the bag over to one of the men who was busy sorting and emptying the neighbour's green box.

"Excuse me," I said politely, "you have left this in my bag," holding out the flattened box for his close inspection.

"We don't take cardboard," he said, without looking at me. (Oh shucks, I must have turned into the invisible woman again!)

"Well, it says on this bag that you do," I said, gearing up for battle.

The cardboard box was grabbed out of my hand and stuffed into the section of the vehicle reserved for and stuffed with - yes, you've guessed it - CARDBOARD!!

Lazy!

Don't think you're lying in bed all day, my lad. Time to get up!

Cycling

As walking isn't too comfortable at the moment, thanks to the creaky ankle, I thought cycling might be better. After all, Keith has a chronically bad ankle but is able to cycle quite easily. So this morning, early (so that no-one would be around to see any possible falling off), we set off down a local cycle path which I recently discovered. 

I am not a newcomer to cycling, although I didn't learn till I was about 16. I did, at one time, cycle to work on a fairly regular basis, along quiet, flat roads, I hasten to add and if it was windy, I chickened out and took the car, but that was about 20 years ago and since then, I have done very little on two wheels. The bike I had then was a very simple, three gear one - yes, it's that long ago, but not quite as long ago as the penny farthing; I would never have coped with that! The bike that Keith bought me a few years ago has lots of gears, which, let's face it, is a bit confusing, but I have slowly begun to realise that trying to go up a hill in 3rd or 4th gear is counter-productive, as I am not exactly Tour de France material.

What I really want is a bike which selects the best gear for me automatically. We have automatic cars, why not automatic bikes? Any enterprising inventors out there?

Electronics

For the past couple of weeks, Keith has been teaching himself electronics - not all of it, I'm sure, but the bits he's interested in. Unfortunately, this meant taking over the dining room, which is very small, and covering every inch of the table with what I would loosely call 'bits and pieces'.( I believe the scientific term would be -bits and pieces). 

But that's not all. In addition, he was building a new, thankfully smaller, computer for NASA, so there were various computer components littered around the living room. Oh, and he has taken the caravan television to pieces too in a, so far unsuccessful,  attempt to mend it.

I am fairly patient and long-suffering (Yes, I am, Kathy!) but if there's one thing which really, really gets to me, it's being surrounded by mess. It doesn't matter that, to Keith it's not mess but precious and interesting stuff, I have only to look around and my positive mood reading immediately drops to double negative with more negative on top.

So now, he's moved everything to the study upstairs. It meant that some of my stuff was unceremoniously ejected, but I can live with that on the basis of 'out of sight, out of mind' is far more bearable.

Peace reigns once more ...