Autumn is slowly creeping upon us, with weather still too mild. I am walking around with my new eye.

There is a choice on the NHS between distance and reading, so I opted for distance and to have reading glasses. So now at present I can just about read with the old eye…

What happens when you get home? For two weeks no heavy lifting, gardening, keep fit classes or housework? For four weeks drops four times a day. What a surprise, the drops are Dexamethasone, the same steroid as in the tablets they give you with chemotherapy. This is to prevent inflammation. For people with other eye conditions like glaucoma there are all sorts of drops which they probably have to take for ever, so mustn’t complain about four weeks. The focus on eyes has given others the opportunity to tell me all about their eye drops, when they take them, which ones have to be kept in the fridge…

A reader in Australia enjoying a Halloween story in Pandemonica.

What revelations and story ideas has my new lens brought? I could be a better police witness. With cataracts and other eyesight problems, how many people are wandering around not seeing properly? That blind person with a long cane is actually someone walking their little dog on a long lead… the man with a baby strapped to his chest is actually carrying a parcel, the man standing over a body on the pavement is actually standing with his luggage waiting for a taxi. I also have a brand new television set which appears to be in 3D. I can read the straplines and hopefully those messages on the characters’ phones vital to the plot.

Of course I still rely on my phone’s lens…

Have you ever not recognised your friend walking towards you or misinterpreted what you were seeing in the distance?