Lack of focus

This is just a short post to convey my current irritation at ageing. My new anxiety is that my eyes take a long time to be able to focus in the morning. I've noticed it recently whilst attempting to vizmig first thing in the morning from my balcony - I just cannot resolve birds with the naked eye for really quite a long time after rising, up to half an hour sometimes. Even getting binoculars in focus is becoming quite hard. Why could this be? Well, what I would definitely not advise is any form of self-diagnosis online as half the websites I checked suggested I was going to die. Instead I am pinning my hopes on being the wrong side of 45 and spending too much time looking at computer screens.

This week my eyes have been particularly unresponsive, and I think there is a direct correlation between this and the rather long shifts I've been putting in at work. All that screen time surely has to be detrimental. And of course a good portion of it is now in a darkened room as the days become ever shorter. One thing to try is turning my lights on earlier perhaps - in the office they were simply on all the time, but here at home I have a tendency to forget. They're "smart" lights though, so perhaps I can code them to come on for sunset - something to look at. Or more likely something for a child to look at - most technology in Chateau L is now handled by a younger workforce. We bought a new television last year and I look at it so infrequently I still struggle to get it on the right mode. Back in the day a TV was just a TV. These days it's connected to all manner of other things and getting it to display the one I want is often beyond me.  

I have a horrible feeling though that the thing I actually need to look at is spectacles. About three years ago I got a free eye test through work and toddled down to an opticians/glasses shop in Canary Wharf. They did various tests and determined that one eye was "0" and the other was "0.25". I cannot now recall exactly what this meant, but they then proceeded to try and sell me a £300 pair of glasses which I am pretty sure did next to nothing as there was not really much to do. I politely declined and strode youthfully out of the shop. I am now wondering if I need to slink decrepitly back in as the curve of decline has probably steepened markedly. 

Ah middle age, how I have looked forward to your arrival. I have all sorts of niggles these days. I cannot remember if I shared my intestinal issues here? Perhaps not, probably for the best. Anyway that's a constant background to my life these days, a dull pain in my lower abdomen (all checked out in a variety of unpleasant ways, not fatal, just annoying). As is an increasing ache in my left hip. Back ache, lots of that, no doubt exacerbated by poor posture and crappy desk chair. Then there's the feet issue, any more than seven miles of walking and agony inflicts the top of my feet and ankles. Oh, and the tennis elbow which until last month had gone away but then I tripped over in Cornwall whilst holding my camera and in effort to preserve it threw that out again. I could go on and on. The hard thing to reconcile is that none of this is going away, and indeed that it is all going to get progressively worse as the years tick by. Fortunately I have a great wine cellar, planned to near perfection to coincide with this new period in my life. Yes, that's the answer, wine. I'll go to the opticians later.

On pacing myself

So in response to my last post where I mentioned I was a little tired of all the running around I do, a number of correspondents got in touch to say that this was all entirely my fault. I accept this a hundred percent, I am mostly busy because I make myself busy, and there are some conscious decisions that I could make (if I were brave enough) that would slow me down. The major one of course, and the route taken by at least one of these people, would be to turn my back on the stress of the rat race and go do something entirely different. Work, for better or worse, is mostly the root cause of all the running around. Not only because of the time it takes up during the day, but also because of all the opportunities it subsequently gives me to fill up my time with. Natch.

I had the opportunity before or course, and whilst I didn’t spurn it, perhaps I didn’t make the most of it. I had a lovely time though and will always remember quite how nice it was living a simpler existence, albeit still in London. Long summer days, still quiet mornings, a sense of calm despite small children.

Fundamentally I like to be busy, but I think the point I was trying to make was that it would be nice if sometimes, just sometimes, that wasn’t the default state. Bob made an interesting point on life continuing to speed by, but that people slow down, and I suspect his many years of experience ;-) are hitting the nail on the head here. I am getting older and there is no denying it. I am still trying to run around as if I were 21, but that the inescapable truth of it is that I’m a few years past that now and basically more tired. To be clear, I am not past it, whatever ‘it’ is, far from it, but perhaps I need to recognise that I have limits, and that those limits are coming in a bit. And that rather than increase the amount of things I do, I need to drop a few of them. That is the difficult part as I have a great many interests, none of which I really want to give up but some of which I may need to change.

So really this is another post about ageing, adapting to it, and how it annoys me that I even have to. But I have started in a small way, and I’m feeling sort of positive about it. This is because I was forced to buy a new camera bag, which is always a happy event. Camera bags are a topic for endless discussion because there is no such thing as a perfect camera bag. There are however many imperfect camera bags, another one of which is now in my cupboard! This one has wheels…..

Yes wheels. This is what I mean about ageing and it annoying me. I mean what camera bag has wheels? To be clear there is no hint of tartan, I have not yet reached that stage, but it certainly isn’t as manly and youthful as the backpack that it replaces. The sad truth is that neither am I, and after my recent trip to Arizona I realised I could not cope with the weight of my bag for an extended period of time. It contained a fair amount of stuff it has to be said, due to my pig-headed inability to choose between pure birding and pure bird photography and insisting on doing both. Hence a large lens, a large scope, two cameras, a few other lenses, a tripod for the scope, a monopod for the lens, chargers – you get the picture. The weight? 23kgs and there was barely a thing in it that I didn't use. There is no compromise possible in my mind on trips like this where I have multiple aims, but after lugging it around for a week I realised I can’t do it again, or rather I would prefer not to.  Hence the new old man’s bag. I have high hopes for it, and it doesn’t actually hold as much stuff so not only does it roll gloriously across airports and along pavements, but it will be lighter too. This is a bag for easy trips, worry ye not though as for hardcore bird photography trips I have a smaller bag that my poor wizened frame can still bear.

Ready to roll

Whilst on the topic of ageing, last night Mrs L and I met up with our university buddies at our traditional meeting spot, which is an old-school public house in London. A classic old boozer actually, utterly timeless, whilst those who frequent it gradually become more decrepit. Last night the starting topic of conversation was gout, which is entirely appropriate for our demographic. In a way this is entirely fitting, we have been going to this pub for years and gout is thus the natural conclusion. Not my gout I hasten to add, you would have definitely heard about it by now! We recalled how we had been sat perhaps at the very same table talking about buying houses and mortgage rates. Over the years the subjects have varied, through engagements and marriages, jobs, toddlers, children, school places, catchment areas. And now in a depressing yet totally expected progression we’re onto our ailments. Actually a couple of us are still talking about engagements and marriages, but they’ve held out long enough that they might get to do the ‘in sickness and in health’ part simultaneously! And I suppose if we all remain in London for the foreseeable future, it’s probably the place we’ll end up in talking about death too. Nobody said that last night but I wonder if we were thinking it? Or maybe it was just me, bags with wheels prompting morbid thoughts well before their time.