New Specs

I have been wearing the same pair of glasses for five years. Three years ago I had my eyes checked and the prescription altered slightly, but when I saw myself in the new frames, I immediately went back to my old ones.

I am very short-sighted, -6.75 in one eye and -4.50 in the other. I also have astigmatism. This racks up the cost of a pair of glasses to well over £300. As any myopic person knows, thick lenses distort the way your eyes look to others, making them look small and piggy. Wide frames accentuate this, making it look as if someone has seized the part of your head your eyes are set in, in a vice and squeezed, making that part of your head much narrower than the rest of your face. It is not a good look. On BBC1 News, they often use a political journalist who is extremely myopic and the effect is there for all to see.

A Chinese friend tipped me off about Tokyo Washin, a Japanese optician in Regent St who she really rated. I toddled along and am now the proud possessor of a wonderful pair of new lightweight specs, the lenses of which have been carefully crafted to lessen the milk bottle bottom effect.

I am very pleased with the look, but now I have to get used to them. They are varifocals, but the place where the reading and distance lenses meet seems to be set higher up than in my previous specs, so I feel I am having to move my head around all the time to see things clearly. Also, I opted not to have those lenses that go dark in the sun. My last specs had developed Reactolite fatigue so that they never went quite clear. Suddenly, I feel as if I have splashed iced water into my eyes 'cos everything is sparklingly clear.

I have put a pair of trendy black and lime green frames by, and am going to have them made up into distance only with Reactolite, or whetever version they use. It'll cost me another £300+, but then I shall be prepared for everything. I do miss the feel of my old specs, though. They had moulded perfectly to the shape of my nose and I hardly noticed I was wearing them, whereas these seem to pinch and irritate like a pair of new shoes, as opposed to comfy old slippers. Hmm. I've been wearing these new ones for all of twenty minutes now. Maybe I should get used to them gradually. Where did I put my old specs? Aaaaah, that's better!