Tommy, can you see me?

Varifocal see-sickness

It’s now official. I came away from what I thought was Specsavers with a prescription that said “your next optical devices will be a white stick and a Labrador”, and “by the way this is Halfords”. I’m a proper speccy old git now.

I’m well-balanced, apparently. Not only have I a chip on each shoulder, but my eyesight’s equally poor close up and long distance. Hence these varifocal things, which make me nauseous. Whenever I glance sideways, or up and down, things blur, and I get a see-sick feeling.

I think this variation on bi-focals was designed by the sado-opticians guild, when their members threatened a mass walkout because the dentists were having all the fun. Before you even get to see the optician, they let what looks like a kid on work experience blow a high-speed burst of grit-enhanced air into each eye, just to let you know where you stand in this S&M relationship. Then the optician scratches her head at you and appears to seriously ponder just how, with those things, you ever managed to blunder into the right premises.

“Did you drive here?”

“Yes.”

“Is anyone with you who can drive back?”

Now grit-free, I’m about a week into the “give them a chance, see if you get used to them” zone, and seriously considering the caveat “not everyone does”. It feels like wimping out, but feeling like you’re about to hurl every time you glance over your shoulder isn’t good. Particularly not when emerging from a tight turn.

Just to keep the sado-dentists interested, the filling that was installed recently on the basis that: “we’ll see how this goes, if it doesn’t work it’ll be root canal or extraction” has now de-installed itself (into a soft bread roll, at that), so not only am I permanently seasick on dry land, I have some hours of excruciating agony with lights shining into my eyes to look forward to.

If I don’t mistake the Nag’s Head for the dentists, that is.

Sometimes shortcuts work

Particularly, it seems, when there’s a slow cooker involved. I slow cooked a brisket joint. Not a fashionable cut, but one that turns out well cooked slowly, with onions and garlic and mustard flavouring it. I ended up with some slices to eat with mustard, and some with horseradish, on home made bread, and plenty left over. I also had a slow cooker pot with quite a lot of onion and garlic gravy and juices.

This is the shortcut: I cut up the leftover beef, and put it back into the juices with a dozen green chillies, three tomatoes cut into wedges, and a couple of spoonfuls of various sundry leftover curry pastes (at least one was vindaloo, and another Balti).

This has had two lots of slow cooker cooking, before dolloping it out onto a bed of rice to see what it’s turned out like. Initial tastings suggest it’s worked well, for a shortcut.