I’ve been short-sighted since I was five and have to wear either contact lenses or glasses to see pretty much anything unless it’s two inches from my face. Yup, I’m as ‘blind’ as the proverbial bat and rely on opticians to help me see basically.

Although I prefer to wear contact lenses to correct my vision, I obviously have to wear glasses too as it’s not good to over-wear contacts. I have MultiFocal contact lenses and Varifocal glasses so I’m not one of those people who can wander into an opticians, have an eye-test, choose new frames and return an hour later to pick up a new pair of glasses. My prescription is also really high which means I have to have the lenses in my glasses made thin so they don’t look like the bottoms of old jam jars. A costly business!

I religiously go for my eye tests every year and would never miss one. I have no idea why so many people don’t take their eye health seriously. Some of my friends have never been to an opticians – something I find incredible. One said to me recently, ‘My eyes are fine. I can see so what’s the point?! An eye test can find out all manner of things about you and many an optometrist has detected diabetes, high cholesterol and even brain tumours in their patients. (Obviously the latter is extremely rare but what I’m saying is that an eye test will reveal how well or not so well you can see, but it can also reveal a lot more about you.

Recently I took myself off to Vision Express for an eye test and new frames. I knew my prescription had changed as I was struggling with screen-work and even reading when my eyes were tired in the evening. I’d been going to another big high street optician for the past 10 years or so but as I’d seen really nice frames in Vision Express, I thought it was worth giving them a go. Their prices seemed to be pretty much on a par with the one beginning with S that I used to go to so I had nothing to lose trying out a new optician.

On the day of my appointment, I was wearing my contacts when I arrived as I’d been given the wrong information – this meant that I couldn’t have the ‘puff test’ (which ccan detect glaucoma or the peripheral vison test. This made little difference as I had both of those on the day I went back in to pick up my new glasses. (On a side-note, why do so many people persist with the archaic term ‘spectacles’? Nobody ever says it in ‘real-life’!). I had a very thorough contact lens check and an Eye Test and as I thought, my prescription had changed. As I’ve been over the magic -10 mark for years now, my Eye Tests are free – the only benefit to having rubbish eyesight! Unfortunately my lenses aren’t and as I said above, the lenses in my glasses are pretty costly. I went out to choose new frames, knowing that I was going to spend a Mini-Break’s worth of money to get myself sorted.

The lady who helped me choose guided me towards the frames which would suit my prescription so I didn’t waste time trying on inappropriate frames. I narrowed it down to 2 pairs but ended up buying the first pair I tried on. I’m not a labels-person and don’t give a monkey’s about designer frames but the ones that suited me best were actually the Ralph Lauren ones worn far more beautifully than me by the model in the picture on the Vison Express site.

I can honestly say that I love my new glasses and they are far more stylish and comfortable than any glasses I can remember wearing ever.

The Thumbs Up then to my new glasses from Vision Express!