THIS week I poked myself in the eye - repeatedly…

A few years ago I conceded that the world wasn’t simply becoming more indistinct: I needed glasses. It was on a holiday to Italy a few years back (the subject of a previous article) and after juggling three pairs of glasses whilst driving that I gave in and visited an opticians. When my glasses broke I replied to one of the many reminders I had studiously ignored during the year and made a return visit. “What about contacts?” I found myself saying. A good friend wears contacts. Nothing would now induce her to return to glasses.

But she is gorgeous. My face stared back at me from the mirror. It was abundantly clear that much more than the absence of glasses would be required for me to become gorgeous; more like extensive and drastic surgery. But I fancied not having to think about glasses; constantly losing them; struggling with 3D at the cinema; never finding my prescription sunglasses for driving…

A contact lens trial was arranged and I was given instruction by an extremely patient assistant. She guided me through the near impossible task of finding a wafer thin piece of transparent plastic, then balancing it precariously on the tip of my finger and finally, poking myself in the eye without blinking.

‘Don’t give up,’ she said encouragingly at the third or fourth attempt. ‘You’ll get it’. Half a century of blinking protectively when anything came close to my eyeball is not easily unlearned. A couple of decades earlier I’d mastered flying a plane. Surely now I could master the insertion of a contact lens. I felt utterly frustrated, embarrassed and humiliated. ‘Let’s try the other eye’ she suggested, concerned perhaps, that my failed attempts would result in permanent blindness.

Eventually, after much poking the things went in. I then had to learn to remove them! And put them back in again. I returned home with strict instructions to take them out after 4 hours. I peered into a mirror but no way could I see or feel them. Had they fallen out? After several unsuccessful attempts to find them I called a neighbour in desperation. Between the two of us we managed. My eyes were sore and bloodshot – not with wearing the contacts, but getting them in and out.

Undeterred, the next day I tried again; this time with the moral support and encouragement of another contact-wearing friend. Lenses split, disappeared and probably ended up inside the dog. My supply of trial lenses was dissipating as fast as my patience.

I’m not sure how this story will end and whether I will succeed with lenses. But the experience has revealed two things; it is extremely hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and some dogs get even more pig headed, belligerent and grumpy as they get older.