Eye popping day!

So you know when you pop to the eye clinic on a Monday morning for a check up because there’s a floater in your left eye that makes it look like you’re viewing the world through a pair of glasses with a mosquito squished on the lens. Oh and over the weekend there’s been a flood of little floaters join in so it’s now like you’re a cliche bank robber with a stocking over your face. And in your head all those years of watching Star Trek has cooked up an eyeball-jelly-eating alien worm which is laying its eggs in your eye and preparing to burst out through your face.  The next thing a nurse is slapping a hospital wristband on you, drawing an arrow in biro over your left eye and asking if you might be pregnant for the consent form because the consultant has found your retina is torn in two places and you need immediate surgery, correction *laser* surgery…?

Well that was how my week started 

How did I tear my retina not once but twice?! Was it a badly stifled sneeze? A particularly harrowing episode of Stranger Things? Am I tearing my retina right now? Who on earth knows. Anyway, bloody brilliant service from the Prince Charles Eye Unit on Windsor, in, diagnosed, lasered and out within two hours. Just the rest of the day to try and calm down, the squashed mosquito and alien eggs are still there while my eye reabsorbs them (yuck!) but otherwise all is good. 

How was your day?!!

 

Escaping

Last night I decided to quit Facebook and Instagram. Maybe just for a while, maybe for good. I have loved social media for keeping up with my people, seeing what they’re up to, sending birthday greetings and occasionally asking the meta verse for help with a problem. But lately all I’m seeing is ‘suggested content’ or ‘sponsored post’ junk which has become as exciting as hearing the letter box flap and rushing to the front door only to find a leaflet trying to sell me double glazing. I’m disappointed and I’ve found myself scrolling for longer and longer just searching for a friendly face. I need to escape.

So this morning I decided to start blogging again instead and now you can all come to me. Ha! Having reread my last two posts I realise it’s been many years since my last blog-confession and there is much to catch up on if this is to be a decent record of the life of Nobby and me. But let’s just start with now and work in some back stories later as we go along. 

Quick aside though, given my last posting, ironically Poppet now works at Fright Night at Thorpe Park!! I couldn’t make this up! She graduated from Chichester uni last year with a first in Musical Theatre Performance and took a role in the mazes as her first job. I can confirm that they do only get paid minimum wage but there’s no pick’n’mix bonus. She’s doing long days and is usually out before us. This morning I am up early to vacate my room so she can use our en suite shower without having to creep past sleeping parents, which is creepy. (We’re in discussions with a plumber to have one installed in the family bathroom so I can lie in - who’d have thought my extended slumber would end up costing £1500?! Kids expense just never ends and ALWAYS grows larger like a tick sucking away on your leg)

Anyway, back to me. Yesterday saw Nobby and me in London to do a walking ‘escape room’ on a Jack the Ripper theme plus a cheeky liquid lunch (with sharing platter) at Brewdog, all courtesy of Travelzoo, Nobby’s favourite bargains site. We ended up staying out to watch Al Murray and friends perform a crazy play called The Crown Jewels while Pickle looked after the dog - oh yes there’s a new dog since I last wrote, so much to tell you! By the way Pickle is still lost in cyberspace but does also venture out to work on the Tote at the races every now and then. 

Anyway, the Escape Tours adventure creators are based in the Netherlands and we suspect might not have been to London to monitor their game lately since one of the clues relied upon the inscription on a fountain which is no longer there and another led us down an alleyway in Chinatown past overflowing bins, barrels of used cooking oil and exhausted chefs having their cigarette break. At the end of the two hours we were considerably underwhelmed to have solved the mystery and ‘escaped’, it took a coffee break in Piccadilly and a pint in Porterhouse in Covent Garden to recover. The stats then told us we are 16th of 42 on the ‘leader board’ for the tour. Does that mean only 42 groups have ever done the game?! And if so why don’t they know about the missing fountain and the alleyway of filth?! 

Thankfully the play was an hilarious distraction and the Elizabeth Line transported us back home with uncharacteristic efficiency so all in all a good day out and a nice escape from routine (see what I did there?!)  Next time though I think we’ll design our own trail. Lucky for Escape Tours I’m no longer on Facebook to diss them to the masses.