The 4-day week rocks

It’s payday. It’s PAYDAY. I am loving the Thursday this week, let me tell ya. Not only is it the payday, but we had Monday off and so this is only a 4 day week. Plus, the weekend was good. Went for a long walk with my flatmate, all the way up to Blackheath, which is lovely, until you find out that it is so called because that’s where they buried all the victims of the Black Death. Isn’t that nice? Spent Monday with Sylvia at her envy-inducing flat in Stoke Newington. It’s a warehouse conversion – all skylights and wooden floors and light, airy spaces, and easily 3 times the size of any of the places I’ve lived in London. I’m not bitter, I’m just saying, that’s all.

But back to this week, and the joy of payday. Today is also special in that I am picking up my new glasses today. I chose them last Saturday. It took about 2 hours – and was not fun. I am very short sighted, and I wear my glasses everyday – so this was a big decision. I was on my own and find it difficult to trust the opinion of the Specsavers sales assistants, because, well, they are sales assistants and they don’t know me. Plus, I had to buy them on Saturday because that’s when their special offer (buy one pair, get the other FREE) ran out. This posed a financial dilemma as, what with today being payday, I ran out of cash about, ooh, 3 weeks ago. Tricky. I’ve picked a gold-framed pair with a quite rectangular shape, very different to what I am currently wearing, and a pair very similar to the ones I already own, but with thin purple frames. When I finally sat down at one of the little tables to wait for an optician to come over and explain that I would have to pay an extra £160 so I could get super-thin lenses, and that no, they don’t have a payment programme, one of the sales assistants ambled past and looked at my selection. Looking at the purple ones, he actually said this: ‘I see you’ve gone for a fun pair.’ Fun? Like, I’m having ‘fun’ with my wacky choice of spectacles? Like I’m a female Timmy Mallet? Excellent. I went for them anyway – they’re fine, and I think I like them. Paying for them was a tad uncomfortable – I had my visa card with me, and although I said to the cashier ‘I’m not sure how much credit I have left on this card, please try it, and if it gets declined I’ll pay by cheque’, when she did try the card, and it did get declined, she looked at me with mix of pity and suspicion, like maybe I am just poor, but maybe I also a common criminal (have you noticed that whenever this happens there is always a queue of people behind you to witness your shame? Always). Then I got the cheque book out, and everything was going better, until they had to call for an authorisation code – this is when I started sweating. More people joined the queue; they called the bank 3 times and got cut off three times, and then finally, they got the code and the sale went through. They were still looking at me like I was a leper though. God – if they weren’t the cheapest optician in town, I swear I’d go elsewhere…

So, I’m picking them up today, no longer convinced that either pair will suit me. They’ll adjust and fit them for me – another peach of a part of the process where they give you a complex about having an unsymmetrical face/wonky ears/one eye bigger than the other. Hmm. Starting to feel less positive about the Thursday…

If I’m feeling brave, I might post some pictures later. Not promising anything though.