Making contacts

Yesterday's post was intended to tell you about the villa where we stayed for a fortnight in Italy and how we got there. Hence the title of yesterday's post, which had nothing to do with the content. I was distracted when thinking about the flight into talking about my fear of heights. I will return to the subject of flying on another occasion.

Today is my wedding anniversary. I have been married to Ingrid, my best beloved, for 31 years. We exchanged cards, which, coincidentally and quite by chance, were illustrated by big cats. In my case because I spent yesterday afternoon at Marwell Zoological Park photographing a lovely female Snow Leopard. My class this term are called the Snow Leopards and we will spend the first week finding out about ourselves and the creature whose name we bear. I bought a stuffed version of the snow leopard to go on display in the classroom. I also bought a card showing two leopards in close up and in close contact entitled "love and affection". I thought it highly suitable and as usual did my own verbose message inside:

My old friend,
There's sometin' I must let you know
I haven't said it much
I guess I've lost my touch
But, my old girl, I love you so
No I know it hasn't all been rosy
We've had squabblin'days when tears were brought about
But in a moment or two we would bill and coo
And never even knew
What we fought about

(Damn Yankees: Goodbye, Old Girl)

This quote is from one of my favourite songs which I hope will form part of my funeral service. I don't think I am being doleful but Brian (my son - in - law's step grandad) passed away on Monday. He was a tall quiet gentleman who I really only got to know over the last few years as part of the new extended family you become part of when your child marries. He was very kind and generous to my daughter, which earned him a special part in my heart.

Besides the card, I bought an external hard drive for my wife's home computer. I know! I know! It doesn't sound very romantic but we had tears last term when work she had composed disappeared off into the ether, never to return. I vowed then that I would increase her memory capacity and get her to save her material more frequently.

As for the rest of the day, I have been researching and starting to write applications for my next big adventure. When I retire at Christmas, I hope to be able to get some film or TV extra work at least occasionally. However I like to do things properly so I have been reading as much material about the job and its outlooks as possible. I have selected four agencies to write to with my application and CV. They all want some photographs so I am working out how to do that with a photographer friend.

One of the items I read was about the wearing of spectacles. Apparently this can be quite limiting on a film set as audiences tend to spot them more clearly than the unadorned human face of an extra. Impulsively (I have been thinking about it for some considerable time now however) I made an appointment and went off to see the optician about contact lenses this very afternoon. To my utter amazement, after the customary check up, I was presented with a pair of practice lenses to try out there and then. The technique for putting the lenses in took me a little while to master but I did succeed without too much fuss or difficulty. I enjoyed the fact that I could see. I had discussed my requirements with the optician, i.e. that I needed to see distance as that is where the assistant director will be operating from behind the camera but that reading could be done by using reading glasses. The optician did describe a situation where you could have a distance lens in your dominant eye and a reading lens in the weaker one. Appparently the brain will sort it out as and when needed, but it sounded too odd to me so I went for the simpler option. When I was then told that I could keep the lenses in and drive home I was flabbergasted. It all just seemed too easy! In the end, I took them out (which seems the more difficult manouevre of the two) while I was in the consulting room. I now have a practice pair until my new ones arrive through the post. The speed of the whole transaction fair took my breath away! (I was going to say "eye-opener" but I thought that would occasion a groan!)

Tomorrow I am off to London with daughters and wife to look at wedding dresses for younger daughter who is getting married in summer 2007. I will travel up with them but will go and see "Frost/Nixon" at my favourite theatre, the Donmar. After the matinee we will meet up for an anniversary meal before catching the train back.