shewhomust | What is this 'distance' of which you speak?

I spent much of this morning with a charming young man gazing deep into my eyes. This would have been a pleasanter experience if he had not been using a powerful torch.

The good news is that the recent deterioration in my sight is indeed caused by cataracts, and that other than that things are stable. So that's something which can, in time, be cured, by an operation which (apart from my squeamishness about eyes) is pretty minor.

Once this has been done, the optician assures me, I will be pleasantly surprised by crystal-clear distance vision. I'm sure he's right - I am, after all, constantly delighted by details in my photographs which I had not seen in the reality - but since I have never had much in the way of distance vision, I've never missed it.

On the other hand, I already have problems seeing my computer screen (the war on typos is not going well), and the optician argued that new glasses would be too temporary a cure to be worthwhile. So he will refer me to 'the consultant' and in due course we shall see what the consultant says (which may be "not yet").