a view through my own eyes

This is the second book of my holiday reading and was finished near the end of our flight home.

Kostova has taken Bram Stoker’s Dracula and dragged him into the 14th Century, oops 20th Century.

Taking the form of a tour around Europe from Holland, into France, England, Italy and onwards into Turkey and beyond, the tale of the narrator’s own past, her father’s past and that of his mentor along with those of other characters comes out in small snatches of conversations, letters and manuscripts, each pulling you further in.

I expected this to be horror chick-lit to be honest which is why it went on holiday as a disposable book, in the end I finished it on the way back and it will reside on a bookshelf somewhere. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and gained a sense of being in some of the places described as there is certainly a captured atmosphere, which broods and lingers. At the same time it is a horror story so those of you expecting gore of the Herbert or Hutson variety will be sadly dissapointed, and maybe that is why I did enjoy it as much as I did.

One thing I did enjoy about the book was the self belief that it had, the references to Stoker’s work being fiction whereas the protagonists (including the narrator) knew and felt that this was real (to them) and this stood up all the way through and it is that self belief that I think sold the book to me.

I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Well I think George is feeling better.

I realised that the eye drops I am now on sting a tad when they go in, I didn’t before as the eye hurt rather more than the sting!

Also the light sensitivity is decreasing.

So I guess things are moving in the right direction.

Phew.

A big thankyou to mrspao for the wonderfull handmade socks, what more could I possibly need?

Today has turned into a lazy day, breakfast in bed, a seminar for my course and a chinese takeaway for dinner – fantastic.

We did go over to the cinema multiplex at Ashford for one of our rare visits, but being half term it was absolutely nuts and there was a two hour wait for the next showing of Stardust as we had just missed one, so we decided to call it quits whilst in good humour and come back home. I am certain that when I was a child half term was two weeks later which at the time was a major dissapointment – now I wish it were the other way around.

So today has been lazy, lounging round doing odd little things like reading books (reviews coming soon – honest) and swearing at updating firmware on the fileserver.

UPDATED: forgot the captions!
Rumour has it that we went to New York on holiday.

Here are a few pictures:

One of the many junctions of Broadway, something Avenue and something else West Street.

A small park near Maceys, well you can see what happened – no it was not rehearsed. Before anyone asks you cannot see the pictures of Marilyns knickers.

The somewhat tiddly building looms in the distance. What made me boggle is that it was built in the depression, was it an object of hate to the masses or a symbol of hope?

New York from above – sadly it was not such a clear day and visibility was only a couple of miles.

If I look through these wonder if I can spot any Daleks…

I think this was the only time I saw NY quiet. What I really wanted to do was lay down on a crossing in the rush hour and get a low down wide angle shot of a row of cabs, mrspao was not at all enamoured by the idea and told me so repeatedly. Making a tit of myself taking the picture would be fine, a public telling off is something else!

Saw this flange up the Empire State and thought of Liz, who likes words like: baps, flange, moist etc etc.

Lady Liberty looks over the hardbour, is she welcoming visitors to America, or in this day and age is she warning people off?

Somewhere quiet to sit.

It has been mad of late, being a student part time with uber quantities of reading to do has left me with not a lot of time to play. Still that is my choice and I am enjoying it. More on this another day. However I will no longer mock the humanities students who only have four hours of lectures a week.

Enough procrastination.

Yesterday morning whilst minding my own business George (the transplanted cornea eye) started to ache, then started to water, then the vision did a wierd shift and daylight seemed a tad painfull. This was over the period of a couple of minutes.

That can be regarded as a: Oh shit! moment.

So following instructions I phone the eye consultants secretary and get added to today’s cornea clinic on a need to be seen pretty quickly basis. Then I see my GP to be sanity checked that the cornea is not dropping off and she makes a call to the eye unit at Ashford to sanity check her thoughts that I will live until today.

I did.

Today I saw the eye consultant – who decided to see me straight away and that I could jump the entire queue and not have to sit there for hours and hours.

A good look round the eye, using the pinhole glasses and the snellen chart (the vision is very good) along with taking details of the above symptoms, reveals that I have early stage symptoms of cornea rejection.

That was the second: Oh shit! moment.

However physically it looks very good, the stitches look fine but there is some inflamation, importantly though there is no sign of infection.

So it is back on to large quantities of steroid based drops (Pred Forte this time), for the next few weeks – which should sort things out.

That was the: Phew! moment.

If things do not improve or there are any similar turns for the worse I have to call and get added to the next cornea clinic.

So whilst the eye is still painfull, sitting in a gloomy room means that I am not wincing at the light and the eye is not watering so much. The first lot of eye drops are in and most usefully I am not worrying as I was this morning.

Finally a big thankyou to Mrspao for being so understanding at me being a bit narked for the last day or so.