First find your optician…

They are liable to be situated in a second floor office, above a restaurant. There might be a sign in the window, but it won’t be visible from the pavement, unless you walk along the other side of the road. The staircase will have no mention of the optician’s existence, but the secretary will be friendly when you finally phone her to admit you have no idea how to find her, and will guide you back past the restaurants and towards the stairs you rejected the first time round. She will greet you as you arrive, and smile as she takes your name and shows you to the waiting room.

She will continue to smile as she tells you you will have to wait half an hour, and still be smiling an hour and a half later when she finally calls you up.

The eye doctor will not, as promised, speak English, but you will be able to make it known what you want, and the secretary will translate anything complicated.

After having more bright lights shone in your eyes, you will be given the all-clear, although you will be told that it is important to go back to the clinic when you get home. You will be allowed to reduce your eye-drop consumption in two stages, and completely stop taking the pupil-widening-drops.

When you come out of the consultation room, you will pay the 70€ without flinching, but will blink in the sunshine when you get back outside, before making your way back to the overpriced carpark.

You will be taken out to lunch/dinner by DB and his relatives to celebrate and you will realise that eating fish is complicated, both with dark glasses, but also without them, but you won’t care too much, because you know that you’ve got through the worst.

You aren’t going to go blind after all!

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Thank you for all your good wishes! 🙂