Bob!

Hurrah for hols and re-reddened locks! As clipped by the curiously-named hair salon, Claps ...

The snow cat of Matsue

After a thrilling snow fight with Sir S, where a snowball deftly knocked his hat askew and left a dubious stain on the back of his coat, we set to building a Snow Totoro, which morphed into a Snow Mouse and ended up looking like a Snow Cat. Meow!

Eye-popping fun!

It is in a state of high trauma that I must commit to the cyberpage Miss Ember's brush with the five fates of optometry at the Japanese EYE CLINIC. With my flight to the Home Country imminent, I thought I'd put in a new order of goggles before I crashland in the Antipodes later this month. I diligently made an appointment in advance after twiddling with knobs and having my appointment reconfirmed twice by robot over the telewires.

Expecting a neat and tidy glasses shop with small private quarters in which to get my eyes tested, I was most taken aback to walk into what seemed like a mini-hospital. A wide open area was packed with waiting people and nurses buzzed about amid the throng. At reception I scribbled my name next to Person Number 46. Forty-six! The nurse confirmed that I wanted to order a set of whizz-bang goggles, and she sat me down and told me to wait most honourably. I made myself comfortable and squizzed the room.

Nurses flurried about in a chaotic choreography, punctuated with the ear-splitting cry of the next patient's name "Yamagawaaaaaaaaaaaaa Keikoooooooooooooo-saaaaaaaaaaan!", whisking patients this way and that to various places around the room, and occasionally ushering them into a curtained-off area. In the middle of the "waiting room" was in fact half of the clinic, for amid the crowds in full public view were three Viewing Boards (displaying hiragana characters and a rotating C) and a desk loaded with cases of lenses. The nurses maniacally flicked the C this way and that and snapped new lenses into the patients' hideous frames while patients chanted "left!", "right!", "up!" and "down!" from beneath their monstrous licorice-lined bifocals.

As the rush of nurses and herded patients blurred around me, it was with horror that I noticed the young man sitting opposite me had a piece of string hanging from his eye. I blinked. I looked thrice. It was definitely a piece of string. A long one at that, inserted in his eye at the lower lid, it's tip curling around his finely chiselled cheekbone. Had the man had an accident? Did his experiment with cross-stitch go awry? Was he waiting for a helpful nurse to attend to him with a pair of tweezers? Finally, a nurse did attend the poor boy, however, she merely plucked the string from its gelatinous resting-place, held it aloft and squinted at it in the light, then stuck a fresh piece of string in his other eye.

What devilry is this? thought I, my teeth set on edge as I scanned the room for more string-eyed folk. Two, three, no, five people were gazing madly at the ceiling, the whites of their eyes broken by the brown spaghetti-length of string! St Bernardette's beard, cursed I, it'll be me next!

I was shuttled forth for my eye test, ushered to a seat, referred to another, escorted back to the eye testing unit, hurried beyond the curtain to get a spotlight flashed into my eyes, and shuffled back to the crowds for another sit-down. Next I spotted the nurses dropping a dubious brown substance into the eyes of old ladies, and everywhere I looked people were receiving a terrific flush of water into their eyes by nurses armed with a jug, a funnel and a small silver bowl. Egads!

My reprieve was brief, and out came the string, unravelling before me like the ominous silken thread of a menacing spider. My lower lid was promptly stretched open, and the string slid into in, pressing firmly against my eyeball. I gnashed my teeth and yelped, then laid back and recalled England: her gay tea parties, her green lawns, her cucumber sandwiches, and her playful sheep. The string was removed, surveyed and then the procedure was repeated on my other eye. I winced and prayed to the Shinto gods that the day would not turn all King Lear on me, my brow damp with anxiety at the thought of some shrill nurse screeching at the top of her lungs "Out, vile jelly!" as my eye ball ping-ponged and ricocheted around the clinic. But instead, an ol' bright-eyed ojiisan who perched nearby watching me, broke forth a wind so thunderous that the string fluttered against my cheek and I could hardly believe my own nosie.

But the horror was not over. Next came the water bath. I was plonked next to another curious ojiisan who stared at me as a silver kidney-shaped dish was clamped against my cheek, and a jug of ice water was poured over my eye. My eye twitched uncontrollably as the water spouted and spewed forth in a never-ending stream and my world disappeared from view behind the silver curtain dragged across my vision. I coughed and spluttered for my body had believed itself to be underwater, despite the fact I could breathe easily. The same thing was repeated to my other eye, and still the ojiisan stared in bewilderment as I panted and puffed like a swimmer struck with cramp.

Dear reader, I nearly swooned, and I feared the worst was yet to come in the form of invasive Clockwork Orange-like wires and pain. However, my ordeal - after three hours - came to an abrupt end, and I was free to stagger out into the street like a gibbering loon. And the string? To check for eye dryness, apparently! I shudder at the very prospect of returning there on Wednesday to collect my new lenses! Some sort of all-enclosing helmet will be in order.