Life in Culebrón

I've been a hostage to opticians for years. I have bad eyesight. When I was very young my mother and father insisted on pointing out sheep and suchlike. I would stare into the middle distance, puzzled. My parents thought I was well down on the learning spectrum until the problem was diagnosed when I went to school. Nearly 8 diopters in the worst eye said the optician on Monday. Generally I wear contact lenses, old rigid style ones that are relatively cheap and reasonably durable. I still need specs though and my four year old ones are very scratched and the hinge is a bit wobbly so they need replacing. I bought a lens hood for one of my Canon camera lenses last week. The one with Canon written on it cost 35€ which I thought was taking the mick. To be honest I was not that cock a hoop with 15€ price tag on unnamed version that I eventually bought. Canon obviously charge for their name. Their RF 28-70mm F2L USM is a pretty good camera lens though even if it does cost 3,249€. ...

I'm hypermetropic and astigmatic - long sighted with funny shaped eyes. When I was young my family thought I was stupid because I had problems telling cows from sheep. Maggie still often thinks I'm stupid when I can't tell Ryan Reynolds from Ben Affleck but I suppose that's different. I think they noticed that I couldn't see very well when I went to school. I wore glasses all the time till I was about 25 - not all the time really but you know what I mean. Thick glasses. Opticians told me I couldn't wear lenses but I insisted on trying them and, nearly 40 years, later I'm still wearing them or rather their successors. Because of the astigmatism they are hard lenses, little plastic lenses that float on the tear layer on the surface of my eyes. I presume the technology has changed a little since the first ones I had but they are nothing like the floppy disposable lenses that most lens wearers use. One of the first bits of advice that I got on putting in and...