Ophthalmic Space Invaders

Apparently we've done all the nearby Parkruns apart from Braunstone, Leicester Victoria and Sherwood Pines. Sherwood Pines is probably the easiest, it has a coffee shop and it will probably be nice and soft on MD's paws.

There’s one small problem though. We follow the signs for the Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre not the Sherwood Pines Visitor Centre. Apparently there is a difference. We then get lost in the one way system around Edwinstowe trying to backtrack. We make it to the start at 9:05, five minutes after the scheduled start but luckily they haven’t started yet. So it’s a running start for us as they get going just as we arrive.

MD, having ran nicely up to the start, then decides to indulge in his usual lead biting. What is up with that dog? Is it pre-races nerves? So we stuff up another potential good start as once again we have to overtake everyone.

At least it’s a nice wide path so overtaking is at least a little easier than usual. It also means that the bushes and trees are further away so less tempting for MD and he doesn’t stop anywhere near as often as usual. So after just one wee stop and two drink stops we clock 23:27. It’s not quite his PB but it's still a good run from him.

We grab a quick coffee then head home to get L to Pilates while I head to Vision Express where I have an eye test at 1pm. As usual they are running late. At 1:40pm I am just about to walk out in disgust when I finally get seen. Briefly. It is at this point that they look at my records and see that I am also due a contact lens appointment next month, so they belatedly offer to do both at the same time. They then send me back to the waiting room where I could now remain for the rest of the day.

For some reason the staff are all dressed up as pirates today but it appears this is not a self deprecating comment on their own customer service standards but to raise money for an eye cancer charity. 

At 2pm, just as I am again about to walk out, I get seen for a second time. I am totally seething by now but they manage to placate me by bestowing upon me the most aesthetically agreeable female optician I have ever had the good fortune of sharing one of those small claustrophobic little consulting rooms with. By this I mean she was just like a slightly younger version of L.

She’s also a star. She rushes through the whole process and decides I don’t need to do all those daft tests where they squirt eighteen different substances in your eyes and then get you to play the ophthalmic version of space invaders to prove you can still see.

She also gives me some new contact lenses to try out which may be able to solve my near sight problems. These are exactly the ones I had seen on the internet and were about to demand from them... or else. I could almost have kissed her with gratitude but that probably wouldn’t have gone down well.

With my news lens in I then head home determined to chalk another item off today’s to do list which is the lawn. Unfortunately by now it’s lobbing it down, so that’ll have to wait. Instead I move onto the next item on the list and when L gets home we take coffee and wine to bed. Not in the same glass I hasten to add.

Later, as I cook tea, I catch Doggo with his head in the wash basket but I am too late. He has already eaten a hole in my treasured Thunder Run t-shirt and also in my cycling shorts. No one is speaking to him.

(Saturday 1^st October)