I thought I was back! I had my new computer, so what could go wrong. Cataracts! Having been diagnosed as having cataracts, I was booked in to have the first operation -right eye- in early September and the left eye a week after.

In the UK friends and family have reported that they get a booking for a walk-in clinic, sit in a chair and a cataract is treated within the hour with very little fuss and you are sent home.

In France, it is firstly a visit to the central Anesthesiology Department used by all the hospitals. ‘Fill in a form’ it says at the entrance. ‘You must complete the full Health Questionnaire’. The machine will only print a form that asks you 3 personal data questions. You feel something is wrong because you were told by the medical website ‘You must complete the full Health Questionnaire’, but there was nowhere to down load it how ever hard you looked.

Anyway, the anesthetist who sees you has paper copies of the mystery form. You pay for the services of these health professionals two weeks before the operation.

Forward 2 weeks, get up early to have a shower as instructed, enter a completely different hospital that specialises in day cases. Shown to a side ward and given all the gear, disposable paper shoes, pants, gown, trousers, mob-cap, and even a paper dressing gown. Lock your valuables in a coded cupboard along with the clothes you arrived in.

Walk to the operating block and hop up onto a trolley where the anesthetist gives you and injection to relax you. The first time I knew what was going on, the second time I knew nothing until I came round after the procedure.

Here is where my excuses for not writing start! From this point on, your old glasses are no use to you, For the next couple of months the eyes are adjusting to their new normal. It didn’t help that the second operation had to be postponed due to a short hospitalisation, so my second eye was not operated on until a month later. With the Christmas holidays as well,I have only recently got new glasses to suit my new eyes. Using my mobile phone was possible with some old reading glasses, but working on the computer was very, very awkward as it had to be propped up on cushions on my lap in order to be as close as possible for my wonky eyes to see it.

That’s it – all my excuses!