ewt | My eyes are dim, I cannot see...

Vision Express want an awful lot of money for high-density lenses. Like £251 for the 50% thinner ones, and £146 for the 30% thinner ones. I paid £120 total for my last pair (but, the frames broke after 9 months, and have again broken after 9 months, and getting new ones means waiting for them to order in the frames, which is not fast).

They also weren't very nice to me. The actual optician was lovely, but the sales monkey was pissed off when I told him I couldn't afford to spend more than £300 in total on glasses. (Please, not to scold me about mismanaging my buffer and overspending and all the rest - I assure you I am scolding myself enough. I still have to deal with the reality at hand). Then he showed me where the cheaper frames were and I started over, since the only ones that he'd brought me that even remotely suit me were £159 and would only be suitble for the thinnerestest lenses, bringing the total to £410. They do a student discount but that still brings the total to £350. I brought some of the cheaper ones back to the table to try and he left me sitting there while he went to deal with another customer. It took me three tries to get his attention so I could pay for the eye test and leave, and I was close to tears by then. So, I won't be shopping there, even though it is fast and the shop is all shiny and white and futuristic.

Another place in Canary Wharf was similarly expensive, slightly more for the lenses in fact, but empty and they were nicer to me, although they kept asking me whether I work in Canary Wharf even though I'd just asked about a student discount.

ASDA do 45% thnner lenses for £110, and 35% thinner lenses for £50. Their selection of frames is limited (although I couldn't really see very well), and I'll have to wait 7-10 business days to get my glasses after they've been ordered, which is a long time - up to two weeks. But the lady there was extremely helpful. She went around with my broken glasses trying to find frames similar enough that I could just get the frames and pop the old lenses in; no joy there unfortunately, so then she did the incredibly fiddly job of taping them. I tried that this morning and utterly failed. She must have magic fingers. The glasses are still quite wobbly - I shall not be wearing them for Aikido - and the lens angles aren't quite right so I'm getting a weird sort of headache, but at least I can see. And they treated me like a human being, which is always nice.

I'm hard up against the old good/cheap/fast problem, where you can have any two. I need fast, because not being able to see is not an option, nor is walking around with a headache for two weeks. I would, of course, prefer good, and the reason I'm not going back to Specsavers is that they have given me two duff frames in a row and they forgot the scratchproof coating on one lens of my existing glasses. But I didn't realise that £300 was cheap for glasses.

No, I'm not getting ordinary thickness lenses. They'll look like fucking cokebottles on me; my prescription is -6.5 (apparently - I thought it was -6.75) in my right eye. I have to wear these things all day every day, and I feel ugly enough as it is.

All the GRAH.

I am grateful that I can see. I am grateful that my visual problems are limited to myopia and astigmatism. I am grateful that I have my pinhole glasses, and that customer service in this country does exist (even if you have to go to 3 shops to get it). I am grateful that