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.

Spry, like a mountain goat

I have just spent some time in nice rocky and sandy environments trying to see and photography various birds. I like deserts – they are in their own way very beautiful. I am no Wilfred Thesiger, as I will recount shortly, but they are definitely to be appreciated, and I would urge anyone who has not been to these regions to go. For the landscape as much as the wildlife.

I was in the UAE. You might think that ths is a bit of a pretend desert, criss-crossed by eight lane highways and carpeted in luxury hotels and crazy skyscrapers. Whilst that’s true, you don’t actually have to go that far to get that feeling of isolation; away from Dubai and Sharjah in the north, it’s still all rather primitive and undeveloped. And then anything south-west of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain are simply a blank canvas, miles upon miles of nothing until you’re well into Saudi Arabia.

This is where I was. I flew to Dubai but it holds nothing for me. Malls and glitz, no thanks. In the same way that I always turn my back on Marrakech and head south, I turned my back on Dubai and headed towards the Omani border. This is where mountain goat skills are best employed.

So it was that at 6.30am I found myself in a stony wadi picking my way slowly up a mountain and surrounded by birds. Green Bee-eaters were amongst the first birds I saw, followed quickly by Orphean Warblers and a bonus Sand Partridge. Much further along the wadi, by which time it had narrowed significantly, I could see a small bird flitting around some foliage halfway up a cliff. Too far up to identify, I carefully picked my way up a scree slope. Plain Leaf Warbler, fantastic! A world lifer no less. It was joined by a couple of Purple Sunbirds and a gaggle of White-eared Bulbul. All very nice, and as gradually this feeding party moved off.

It was then I realised I was quite far up really quite a steep slope, and as everyone ought to know - especially those approaching early middle age - going down is a lot harder than coming up. And as this is 2016, the year of medical and other traumas, needless to say I totally arsed it up. I slipped, fell, bashed my camera on a rock and twisted my ankle all in one graceful movement. I wondered if I had broken it? My ankle, not the camera - this merely now has another crack in it, these 1 series machines can withstand almost anything. But I couldn't really feel my foot, very very tingly. Gradually sensation returned, and with it agonising pain. Excellent. I still had a good way to descend, and my car was at least a mile away. I made it back down and limped very slowly back to where I had parked. Clearly nothing was broken or I'd be being digested inside Lappet-faced Vultures instead of typing this, but nonetheless this could change the rest of the trip.

Needless to say I pushed on, go hard or go home, and in fact took some of my better photos over the next two days whilst essentially balancing on one leg - no mean feat with a very large telephoto lens. Arriving back in the UK early morning on Tuesday I went straight to work and called up the health insurance people. 

"Oh hi Jono" said a familiar voice on the phone, testament to the number of times I've had to call them this year already. "We were wondering when we would hear from you again. What have you done this time?" I explained the sorry tale and was duly booked to see a physio later that morning who confirmed I had a bad sprain and could look forward to 8 weeks of rehab. I declined the crutches.

I am beginning to tire of this year. My eyes have got crap in them, my hand has a lump in it, my little finger a permanent kink, and let's not even talk about my sigmoid whatever it is and the continued nonsense on that front. I would just like for a few months to pass without anything bad happening to me, is that going to be possible? I do not know how this happens, though I have an idea. I suspect it because I still attempt to charge around the place like I am 20 whereas reality says otherwise. Aged 20 I probably would have skipped down that slope and carried on up the wadi. Over double that and skipping doesn't wash any more. Falling over and snapping things is now much more my style, followed by people poking at me and cc-ing me on large bills on posh paper. Anyhow, what I would like to know from my ageing readership is whether this in fact normal and if this is simply a tipping point. If you will forgive the pun, am I now on a slippery slope?

Not bad for a bloke with one leg, one hand, nine fingers, and failing eyes.

Going soft?

A number of my posts recently have mentioned ageing and middle age, mostly in the context of being rather busy. But not in the context of going soft. As I got into bed one day last week after another regular day of honest toil, I noticed Mrs L’s nose was buried in something about heated blankets. I mean that’s bad enough, but this was one of those review comparison websites. What is the electric blanket with the best features? Features, pfff, honestly…..

“Pah!” I scoffed. "My parents have electric blankets on their beds! They are for old people!" Admittedly it was a little on the chilly side versus the weather of late but I am a birder, hardened and tough. I think nothing of standing around for hours on chilly exposed hillsides waiting in vain for rare departed hirundines.

She looked up from the tablet and countered “Well I could just get one for my side.”

I wiggled my cold toes for a moment. “But how would a single one stay on? It would slip off surely? Best get a double one, and I just won’t use my half.”

It arrived last week and I disdainfully helped to put it on and plug it in. 90 quid? What a con, boy did they see you coming etc etc.

[…]

Oh my God it is wonderful. I won’t bore you with all the, err, features, but there is one setting which lasts just 15 minutes and delivers some kind of magma-based supercharge to the bed. If you flip the switch just prior to evening teeth brushing and the pulling on of cozy pyjamas it is a delight to get into. It is almost impossible not to emit a pleasing “aaaahh” sound when you get under the cover. I am at a loss to understand why we did not do this years ago, it is literally the best thing that we have ever bought. I now find myself looking forward to going to bed. Indeed it is not helping my lack of time as I look at my interminable list of things I think I need to do and then decide to hell with it and get into bed instead. “Mmmmmmm”.

Mrs L did remark that we were now officially old, but I think I have always said that you need to embrace the passing of time. This is not going soft, this is just part of the natural progression of things.

So yesterday I ordered some slippers.