Do you know who I am?

I'm in France, amazingly I got to France without a collapse in the weather systems of Europe, without a collapse in the social fabric of the French Air Traffic Control system and without a collapse of the undercarriage of my plane (despite the best efforts of the pilot). In fact my only cardio-perilous moments came on the journey from the airport, where we were attacked by Peugot 207's hell-bent on pushing the boundaries of the French right-of-way system, and later, when my youngest niece (Mooshi) would run towards me with hands raised, a sure sign of impending genital impact, thwarted by a timely mince.

Today however, was different. After lunch we headed to the Promenade for a stroll, bike and in-line skate, some more successful than others. On the way back, we turn where the prom narrows, and Mooshi's somewhat erratic style of cycling actively threatens the well-being of the over sixties, and meander through the fitness zones. Some of you may remember how my psychological manhood was threatened by an inflatable dolphin - and Tessa. Consequently, certain aspects of the fitness zone, chiefly those aspects that you could hang from, presented a significant challenge as to who could show off the most in front of the children. At one point I managed a somersault around the bar, finishing off with the magnificent trick of producing my phone from my sleeve, where it had ended up from my shirt pocket. At this point I must have lost my presence of mind as I failed to consider what else was in that pocket. Later, my coat came off and on with regular frequency as the fitness park expanded. As we approached the car, a thought, a cloud on the horizon, no bigger than a man's hand, crawled dully into my brain, "Had I taken my passport out of my shirt pocket, or had I, in fact lost it."
I mentioned this to Steve, plumping for, "I had taken it out of my shirt pocket."

We returned to the house, "No, I had, in fact, lost it."
Conscious of two small children, I attempted to keep my swearing sotto voce,or, at least to put my head in the wardrobe, ostensibly searching for my errant document, while actually running roughshod through my Tourettian dictionary.
Steve, switched to Action Mode,
"Have you got a photocopy?"
"No %I^$ (*&%%$ )*&^& I don't."
"Well have you got a scan you can pull out from somewhere?"
"No %I^$ (*&%%$ )*&^& I don't."
"Well let this be a lesson to you, I always have at least three photocopies, one of which I keep in a safe-deposit box in Zurich, so that if I ever hang from a pull-up bar and lose it, I can always give Gunther a buzz and he'll fax me a copy straightaway."
"Aha?"

Tessa dispatched herself on bicycle to retrace the route, there, right there, just under that tree, yes that tree, was a British Passport, fortunately it was mine. It has just occurred to me what happened; whilst upside-down my phone had decamped from my pocket, and taken the path of least resistance down my sleeve, my passport had attempted to do the same, but lacking the weight of a battery had only got so far. As the next round of "Who's more limber?" took place, and because it was becoming serious, I took off my jacket, freeing my errant proof-of-existence, so that it could tombe (as we say in France) to the ground.

The rest of the evening was spent eating, playing charades and being humbled by lithe and winsome Tessa, of whom I will hear (nor be allowed to voice) no criticism.

I have seen the light - one hundred and thirty one times.

Well it's been an interesting couple of weeks, I'm still coughing, consequently my morning musings sometimes drift to the more - esoteric, possibly due to the dextrometorphan burden that my body, and hence mind, is carrying. I walk past a Leylandii hedge that last year was full of starlings at the time I go past, and has become the Singing Ringing Tree. For those of you of a tender age, this was an East German fairy story, featuring a spoilt (naturally) Princess, her suitor (turned by an evil dwarf into a, albeit extremely unconvincing, bear) a dwarf (evil, this was in the days before political-correctness), and a singing, and ringing, tree. Sadly, this year there are no starlings, or it's not dark enough yet, so my thoughts turn to a discussion with my cousin Julian, about dating sites for specific groups, we've already got a name for one for the catering trade - "Hobnobs", and I decided that we should have one for the building trade -"Screwfix".
I also wonder whether it is acceptable, even given the one's spouse's approval, to say in the Groom's speech that, " As you all know I have long been interested in Green policy, and now I'm happy to report that I have a Bag for Life."

Anyway.
I had spent the weekend at Liz and Mike's, Liz and I had gone for a sub-zero stroll down the canal, so cold that at one point a pigeon dropped from a tree and curled up his toes as we walked past. We returned to the flat (more floor area than my house), and, as I sat with my cup of coffee I noticed a meteorite streak past when I turned my head to the right, I took off my glasses and tried again, another flash. "Hmmm", I thought, "Strange".

Others arrived, and after supper, we started to build gingerbread houses, using Mike's somewhat fraught ("This recipe, I've never worked with a dough so brittle") gingerbread slabs, three kilograms of icing, and the entire sweets counter of Tesco. I would have had photo's but I managed to delete the entire camera with a push of a misread button- darn!
The following morning, and my flashes had given way to strings floating about, I decided that one of my coughing spells may have broken a blood vessel, I would give it a couple of days to see if it dissipated and, if not, then go to A&E at Moorfields (the UK's premier eye hospital - still in debt).

On Tuesday I went. What decided me? I'd like to say that staring into the clear sky of morning I had an epiphany, actually I saw several hundred semi-transparent flying saucers, which my keen scientific intellect told me were red corpuscles. My keen scientific intellect told me to make sure, I used my finger and closed my right eye (yes, I’m winkingly-challenged). Flying saucers – none, remove digit, flying-saucers and some bands of cobweb.

Moorfields’ triage is brilliant, you’re grabbed by a nurse within five minutes, she tests your eyesight, and takes you to another waiting room, ten minutes later another nurse preps you for examination with drops, has a quick squint in your eye, tests intra-ocular pressure (they use a force meter which is placed against the eyeball; a small hint of what is to come) then returns you to the pool. Up to two hours later you are seen by the ophthalmologist, in my case a ten year old Chinese boy. The prodigy shines a series of ever-brighter lights into my eye, then reaches for something below my eyeline,

“This may be a bit uncomfortable” He says. Five seconds later he says,

“Put your forehead back in the strap please, you’re doing very well!”

Some more gouging followed by,

“The good news is you don’t have a detachment......”

I blink through my tears, emotion or assault – I dunno.

“....the bad news is that you have a retinal tear.....”

“!?!!!” The last one is an exclamation mark – the others represent missing letters.

“We can do laser surgery today, without it you have a one in three chance of a detachment, with, a one in twenty.”

I acquiesce, and am given a pink folder and told to find the fourth floor, as I approach the third floor in the only lift I can find, I manage to read the notice that tells me that this is not the lift for the fourth floor, and that I need to go back to the ground floor and follow the blue line. The ground floor sports beige lino, I eventually find the blue line by both enquiry, and following the orange line. I am deposited on the fourth floor right in front of the reception for not-my-clinic, where the nice lady tells me to go round the corner and go to- Ummm, oh – the second or third door on the right. I surprise a nurse and hand over my folder.

Four hours later my book has been finished for two hours , this is an eye hospital, there is no reading matter apart from a discarded “City AM” – a compilation of the fiscally arcane – and a folder containing a large-print leaflet about why floaters are nothing to worry about, and please go home and stop bothering us – which seems a little out of place as you sent me here in the first place.

The waiting room thins, people emerge from rooms with arrows drawn on their foreheads pointing to one of their eyes, an aide-memoire to the surgeon, just in case he can’t spot the problem and decides to go for broke, presumably.

“Mr., Nicholas Hayes?”

Just as I am about to scream with boredom, along comes Dr Keene to fill me with terror instead.

The usual rigmarole with drops.

“I’m afraid this is going to be uncomfortable.”

“!?!!!, umm, as in Doctorspeak uncomfortable?”

“Yes, I shall have to use this”, a tiny pizza paddle, “to move your eye.”

“!?!!!, !?!!!, !?!!!”

“Well the local should be working now, so sign this consent and we’ll begin.”

I am tipped backwards, and Dr Keene straps what looks like some sort of night-vision device to his forehead, the lights are turned out.

“I’m going to laser you now.”

A small, bright green, atomic device goes off in my right eye, there is a transient warmth that drifts (like swimming through the same patch of sea that someone has recently emptied their bladder into), and then a gaping crater in my vision as all my photochemicals have been bleached.

“and another.”

A small, bright green atomic device goes off in my right eye, there is a transient warmth that drifts (like swimming through the same patch of sea that someone has recently emptied their bladder into), and then a gaping crater in my vision as all my photochemicals have been bleached. What light there is in the room is now crepuscular and purple.

A knock at the door.

“Oh excuse me, I’d better attend to that.”

“Ok I’ll just try and recover some visual purple.”

“I wish everyone had your attititude.”

He returns.

“Umm, how many lasers is this likely to be?”

“About one hundred and twenty, maybe more.”

“Oh” (dimuendo)

Being a scientist can be no fun, for example we begin:

Explosion – One, one hundred and nineteen (maybe more) to go. Explosion – two, one hundred and eighteen (maybe more) to go. Explosion – Three, one hundred and seventeen (maybe more) to go.

I get instruction, such as “Look up and left”, sadly I no longer know where up and left is. There are two moments of what I call “Running stitch” where the bombardment comes so fast I lose count, eventually armistice day comes around and I am, for want of a better word, discharged. As indeed is my adrenal gland. Outside the hospital I feel violated, and a little tearful, but this soon dissipates as I return to work and scare the students with my enormous pupil.

This, of course is also the day when Caroline comes over from Dublin to stay, even after being forced to window shop for the afternoon, she is suitably sympathetic and gives me a Christmas card, which I am able to read, and some truffles which I am able to eat.

I still have a few floaters, I also have windowsill herbs, windowsill herbs that generate a surprising amount of small black flies from their compost, thus my evenings are spent in mystery, wondering whether I should try and grab the small motes that drift tanatalisingly past, or ignore them.