Going to the Dogs

It was difficult to get up this morning after having gone to bed so late. I had watched two episodes of The Likely Lads last night as I didn't feel ready to go to bed after completing my blog and was wide awake. As a consequence it was well after 1 a.m. when I finally slipped between the sheets. Sara brought in tea for me and the wind was howling a gale outside with the empty flagpole rocking about drunkenly. I decided to dismantle the flagpole to avoid the risk of any damage in such high winds. Sara and Mary went off to ballet and Tom had his friend C around playing on his Xbox. I did some general tidying and washing up (it was too wet and windy for any gardening today) and read and sent some emails. Tom and I went into Salisbury at around 1.30 p.m. and had lunch in McDonald's in Winchester Street. We met up with Sara and Mary in there having also bumped into Sarah C with her daughter and friend. I left them for my appointment with the optician at 2.30 p.m. It is four years since my last eye test and I had noticed that my vision was not as sharp for close up work as it had once been. I was given a field of view test and pressure test as well as the normal ophthalmic tests and was diagnosed as having a condition known as Map-Dot-Fingerprint Dystrophy which is a condition of the cornea whereby small lesions occur - a bit like the scratches on plastic lenses but resembling a fingerprint. This causes some irritation as though there is something in your eye with some soreness - something I have noticed in my right eye which is, apparently, worse than the left. It can cause some dimming of vision as it scatters light that otherwise would reach the retina but hopefully nothing serious. Fortunately, my vision was not detected as having been impaired -I scored 100% in the field of vision test which checks out your periphery vision - but I should have more frequent eye tests. My grandfather suffered from glaucoma and so the pressure inside my eyes needs to be carefully watched. It has gone up slightly from last time but is still within the normal limits. Sara joined me after my tests to help me chose some new glasses - I was anxious to have something a bit more modern and have chosen two pairs - one with wider arms and the other similar to my present ones to be used as a spare pair. I'll keep my present pair also for holidays and sunny days as they react with the sunlight. Sara was child minding for Klynn and Susan this evening so I took our two kids down to Poole Stadium for some greyhound racing. We managed to get a seat and I allocated £5 each for me to put bets on for them - 50p per race (we stay for 10 races normally). To my amazement, Mary picked out two Trios and netted £81.90 for a total of £1 worth of stakes! She nearly got a third when she correctly predicted the three dogs that were placed but in the wrong order i.e. she predicted 1-5-2 and the winning order was in fact 1-2-5. Neither Tom nor I had a win but tonight we all seemed to pick out the winners or the three dogs to come into the frame. However to win anything much you have to predict the first and second or the first three accurately. We often got it right but didn't use the correct betting method. Mary was over the moon with her win. Before we had set off for the dogs this evening, Sara and I had suggested pooling our winnings and sharing them at the end of the night but Tom insisted that he wanted to do his own thing and keep his winnings. I think he regretted that decision when he saw how profitable the sharing system had worked for Mary and me. We got back at just after 11 p.m. and Sara was still out. Mary couldn't sleep and wanted to tell Mum all about her great night out so came down stairs after she had gone up to bed. So it seems that today I discovered that my eyesight is starting to go to the dogs and that Mary has a natural talent for picking out winning dogs and wants to go again.