Too hot

Hi there

The worst heat in NZ history and I can't swim because of my cataract surgery.  Talk about torture.  I can sit in the back garden, sometimes in the sun, but more often than not, fitting snugly under the branches of my beautiful fig tree -

cataract surgery - my aftermath

Hi there

Well, it's been over a week since my surgery... and I hate it! There's no pain or anything like that, it's just the inconvenience of it all,   Eight eye drops a day, spaced out at different times is truly annoying.

And I can't swim because contrary to what we all think about sea-swimming, the sea is absolutely bacteria-ridden.

And this is about the hottest summer New Zealand has had in, perhaps, a hundred years.  I sit in the back garden most days.  Then I'm so hot that I crave a shower.  Half a dozen times a day.

And this leads to the next problem:  showering.  I can't get shampoo or soap or grit or any foreign bacteria-ridden thing in my eye.  I tried all sorts of things not to get my eye bumped, scratched, soaped or wet when in the shower. After lots of experimentation (mainly out of the shower), I hit on the perfect showering solution for when I want to cold shower many times in one day.  And here it is:

A bucket on my head!!!

I still have trouble washing my hair.  And after more experimentation, I now have one hand holding a big fluffy bunched up towel over my bad eye,  and the other hand (trying to) wash my hair.

Sigh.......

My cataract surgery

Hi there

I happily bounced into Wellington Hospital, a wee bit scared but not overly worried.  I was only having a local anaesthetic, right?  I'd be alert, awake.  Probably sitting in a comfy chair during the procedure.

Huh?  What?  I stared at a nurse in horror.   I have to get undressed?  I have to take off everything, except my knickers?  And put on a smock, some matching trousers, booties, a hat?  And a dressing gown!   I was going into the operating theatre?

A type of plastic sheeting was placed over my face.  The surgeon cut an eye-hole in it.  A light shone under the plastic and I was told to stare solidly at it.  I was not to move.

I wanted desperately to move.  I wanted to roll my eyes, to twitch and turn, play the ukelele, ballroom dance.  I craved to leap off the bed and run out of that room.  I visualised all manner of horrific things going on with my eye.  I did hear scraping and probing noises.  Or did I imagine that?;  were the half a dozen eye drops and the anaesthetic rub that I'd had earlier giving me hallucinations?  I gripped the nurse's hand extremely tightly throughout the whole procedure. She had to peel my other hand off the bed railing.

The surgeon and nurses were so kind, except when they sent me home wearing a very unflattering see-through ventilated plastic eye-shade stuck to my face with long strands of white Sellotape, and I had to stop off at the chemist and have a prescription filled.  I was sooooooo embarrassed.

 

 Above:  one of the rooms I waited in.  The nurse left me so as I could change outfits and read the Patients' Rights' guide.  When she returned, she was surprised to see me actually reading the guide.

Scorching Bay Beach (again)

Hi there

Here are some  photos I took at Scorching Bay beach in the weekend.  It's so hot in Wellington.  December and January have never been so warm.  People are pouring to the beaches.  25c to 29c.

###
Hospital tomorrow for my cataract operation.  I'm pretty scared ....

My fave Wellington view, Kapiti Island

Hi there

One of my favourite views in the whole of New Zealand is that very first glimpse I get of Kapiti Island that I see on the way out of Wellington as I'm driving along Highway No 1.  Suddenly seeing the island appear, sometimes surrounded in mist, is almost a magical moment ....

Unfortunately, I couldn't take a photo of my favourite view because it's a narrow road, with lots of traffic and I'm always driving (and in a hurry to go somewhere).  But last week, I stopped off for lunch at Fisherman's table which is in Paekakariki and the restaurant has a nice view of the island -

Kapiti can be visited - and it's a great place to hike - but I think you still have to buy a ticket in advance from DOC (Dept of Conservation)

untidy shop customers?

Hi there

Yesterday, I finally found my way to the new K'Mart department store in Petone.

I was stunned at how piggy-untidy customers can be.  There is not supposed to be anything on the floor -

Dresses vs trousers

Hi there

I've often wondered about women moving away from skirts and dresses and how people nowadays don't think that anything is weird about a woman wearing trousers.  Yet ... if a man walked down the street in, say, a floral pleated skirt, there would be such a to-do.   When was it decided, I wonder,  that the two sexes would move into trousers instead of dresses?  And who was the fashion innovator who started it for women?  Coco Chanel, maybe?  But what if Hardy Amies, or some such designer,  had suddenly come up with dress patterns for men?:  the world, today, would be so much different.

You know, there's something noble about a man in a kilt.  It may raise a few giggles from 8 year olds but a kilt is not thought of as too outlandish.  And a gentleman from the Pacific Islands wearing a tropical wrap-around still manages to look macho.

When I was about ten, my mother made me some slacks.  I came home crying after the first wearing because my friends had told me how stupid I looked.  I was a girl, they said, so what was I doing in boys' clothes?

I can see the time coming, maybe fifty years from now, when everybody will be in trousers.  People will look at pictures from The Olden Days and laugh at the look of dresses.  Women will snigger at the skirts like we, today, smirk over crinolines and masses of stiff petticoats....