They say that old age doesn’t come alone – and I’m beginning to think that whoever they are, they’re right.
This week I lost my glasses. And rendered partially sighted as a consequence, I was left irritatingly, if not surprisingly, with little chance of ever finding them again. And so I was left with no option other than to book an admittedly long overdue appointment to have my vision checked in the hope of being bespokedly bespectacled with the provision of an eye-wateringly expensive new pair.
Quite whether I’ll make it to my optician located some 25 miles away from my home, remains to be, dimly, seen, but since the M5 is, broadly speaking, of standard width, I hope to be able to find my way to it and steer myself along its middle lane without having to stop for a comfort break, or being pulled over by a ridiculously youthful looking police officer, and asked to read, unaided, the registration plate of a vehicle situated 20 metres away.
Since my optometrist works out of a building attached to where I worked for 27 years, as I draw near to it I anticipate relying on muscle memory to navigate the final couple of miles. Not that muscles are very much in evidence these days, nor come to that, an ability to recall much of any significance.
Because as well as presumably forgetting where I’d presumably placed my spectacles for, presumably, safe keeping, I also found myself unable to remember it was bin day, And when I was prompted to put them out, I couldn’t recollect whether I’d emptied the rubbish from the bathroom, only to find that, when I went to check, I had.
And then there is the question of whether I need auditory assistance given my wife’s insistence that I never hear what she says. This despite the fact that I never seem to miss her telling me so – a paradox I chose not to point out to her lest I am accused of the more heinous crime of not listening to her. Because whilst I may be going senile, I ‘m not stupid!
And finally there is the tendency for my speech to either be interspersed with random interjections…
…why was my wallet in with the dog food…
…or ramble on endlessly concerning the vagaries of my ever advancing years that nobody is remotely interested in, only to then stop abruptly, just when it seems I might never shut up—
Some musings 