The price of prescriptions for eye glasses

Today was one of those days when I was relatively free from appointments but the day fills up as it always does. I went for an eye test to my local optician in Radstock. They are always very kind and helpful and the consulted found that I needed an alteration in my prescription I have got used to varifocals so I hope it was not going to be too expensive but what do I find?

I had a slight cataract in my right eye but they have a policy of not dealing with such conditions when it is in an embryonic state and would rather wait until it grew

The frame was £79 but including the cheapest varifocal and an  automatic coat to darken in sunlight bought the price up to £438. This is just too big a hole in my budget and it felt excessive, so although I know you have to pay for service and so on but if I can find the same thing for  a lower price on the internet with a 12 month guarantee I am probably going to go for the latter.

Ordering on the internet has its downsides. You cannot try the frames to see if they are comfortable so in my case I thought a padded frame would be preferable. On to the Internet. There is a new company called Direct Sight which is rated highly in Trustpilot but it’s not rated high with me because two things stood out.

On the recommendation page you would expect to see actual recommendations but it is a blank page as if someone had started the job and abandoned it halfway through. When you see an icon saying ‘contact us’ and there is no link it does reflect badly on the whole product because if they can’t get their act together in one way will they be able to get their act together in another way?

Blessedly the weather is getting warmer now and like the natural world I respond, go out and into the garden and dig stuff because after all I am part of nature.Frogs have done their thing and the pond is full of bundles of eggs.

The protocol of giving and receiving

This afternoon I went to pick up a printer which was on free offer on social media which involved a trip to South Bristol. It was a fairly recent Hewlett Packard model certainly worth having and I was grateful to the person for taking the time to make the offer. I drove through what must have been the worst designed set of housing estates ever where the roads were too narrow, one and a half cars width, the houses packed together, it was just plain and simple ugly. Whitchurch people I love you all but golly gosh what a disaster.

We turned up at the house to meet the lady who had made the offer to us. Instead, we were met by a  person who I assume was a partner and he said to us ‘you’ve come to collect the printer’ to which we replied in the affirmative. He more or less put it into our hands and said goodby, perfectly politely I should add.

I asked about the apparent lack of cables but he said he didn’t know. I got the feeling that this unloved and unwanted printer was just being dumped on someone. When we got home we found that one of the cable leads had been ripped out just leaving the plastic holder and I summized that the donor did not check or not bother to check that the associated cables that were necessary for the printer to be plugged in were there.

I wrote:

I am sorry you did not make yourself available when we arrived to pick up the printer. The person who gave it to us knew nothing of it; we are missing the leads which are necessary for it to work so we’re going to have to figure out what leads are required. It would also have been nice to thank you personally and perhaps offer something in return. I have a sense of incompleteness and impersonality. There is no need to respond.

She did however reply:

I have been really poorly since Friday with a nasty flu virus. The person who gave it to you is my husband and because it’s our daughter’s printer, he wouldn’t know much about it. I have spoken to N…..  and while you can use a cable with it it’s also possible to connect it to your WIFI that your computer is connected to, and use it that way. She never had a cable and used it solely with the WIFI.

You should be able to download a manual from the internet.

I responded

Thank you for that. I’m sorry to hear about your flu type virus, feeling depleted is a sign that your body’s immune system is kicking in and repairing itself. Without our wonderful immune system we would all be dead and it’s part of the amazing human body’s ability to keep itself healthy. So, so rest and freedom from tension is the order of the day in my book anyway, Vitamin C would help.Thank you for telling me that you didn’t have the cables in the first place and I will do my best to obtain the bits and pieces for wired. 

Lessons to be learned – by me anyway

What lessons are there to be learned from this less than perfect communication. From my point of view it would have been nice to meet the person who was donating it, it’s a miniature giving and closing ceremony if you like and should be done with a certain amount of dignity. I think there is protocol attached. Protocol is a tried and tested way of doing things

It complicated things that the offerer was not the person who used the item. In an ideal world I would have liked to meet them, thank them, and as appropriate offer something in exchange energy-wise. I made the booking to see them eight days before and it would have been perfectly in order to postpone the meeting due to her having been unwell.

However, I see I have slightly misunderstood the situation that she was just giving or getting rid of and item that she had not used, which was skewed as I had no knowledge of the background. I tend to think of the worst case scenario. Definitely a fault on my part.

I think in retrospect there should have been included in the description of the item even though it was a free offer. It just makes things transparent. You could say that the onus is on me and I would agree in part but having said that  I not quite sure about that since if you are selling a car you have to declare everything relevant about it. The same should apply with giving,  though that’s more a procedural thing than a legal thing.

My learning lesson is that I jumped to a conclusion and was somewhat uncharitable and I attempted to make up for this by giving her some advice that I hope she found useful.

Off to Clutton Village Hall

In the fading light,  off we go to Clutton where there was a talk by the Local History Society, entitled the development of technology since the 1800s and its application to such things as street lights, washing machines, ions, and examples of this are kept in a museum in Bristol.

There were only about 15 people in the audience in Clutton Village Hall which does not take away from the wonderful atmospheric place with a little members bar thoughtfully attached.

I realized how much I have been spoiled going to Wetherspoons. Before arriving at the centre we went to a local pub. We bought a single gin and tonic, a small glass of red wine and a packet of crisps for which we paid the grand sum of £12.80. In Wetherspoon’s it would have been about £7.80. Anyway I digress.

This traditional slide presentation warmed my heart and realize how nostalgic I was for the so-called old days where technology did not rule. We saw pictures of old fashioned electric fires, vacuum cleaners the size of vans, street lights consisting of arc lamps that only lasted one evening and had to be refreshed every day.

My goodness how we have progressed. I found the atmosphere in the hall healing and homely, the people friendly, on the same wavelength.

As ever it is a pity to be amongst an audience of younger people but I have to accept that the world is changing and such retro things are seen as secondary to being on social media.

I’m not saying this is good or bad, just the way it is.