Yesterday after school we visited Santa in Castlecourt in Belfast. He and his elves were very jolly. We chose to have the photograph made into a snow globe to bring out year after year. Details of times are available on the Castlecourt website.
So you've never needed glasses. You've reached your thirties and suddenly reading the on screen TV guide is becoming a bit tricky. They must be making the writing smaller, right? You notice you're squinting to read signs, and in turn some unwanted lines are appearing from nowhere around your eyes and on your nose. Could it be you need glasses?
You tend to think everyone knows what an eye test involves, but maybe you don't if you've never needed one. This is a dummy's guide for you. How a visit to Specsavers in 2013/2014 goes. Which tests will your peepers be put through? Is there any uncomfortable or painful parts to the eyesight measurement? What about choosing frames? What are the options involved there?
I visited my regular Specsavers Store in the Bloomfield Centre, Bangor, Northern Ireland, where Melissa from Freshwater PR talked me through and took photos for me, Emma helped me choose frames and Stuart the store's director and optometrist provided the actual test.
So where do we start?
Gerard putting my eyes through their paces
Your first stop is a darkened room with two machines. The first you rest your chin on, and put your head against a bar. You look into the machine and it gives a basic reading of whether you are short sighted or long sighted. Next the same machine tests the pressure in your eyeball. This is to check for any potential illness or disease related to sight, rather than dealing with eyesight strength.
This part is the only bit I'm not keen on. The machine puffs a tiny bit of air at your eye to record the pressure, and the 'pop' of the air coming toward me always makes me jump away from the machine! It's in no way painful, nor uncomfortable, but it's a natural reaction to move away from the air.
In the same room, the optician's assistant uses a different machine to take photos of the back of your eye. Again you just put your face against a machine, there's a bright light, and that's it done.
Next comes the official optician part of your eye test, in their room. That's where you read lines of letters through some funky looking robo-specs, like I'm doing in the photo above. Stuart will ask a series of questions and do visual tests to pin down what your prescription strength of lenses will need to be. All in all this takes around 10 - 15 minutes, and again there's no uncomfortable tests, or pain involved.
This part is actually like a computer game. I haven't got any cheat codes for the answers though ;-)
The last test is in another darkened room. You repeat the test for each eye, and wear a patch over the eye you aren't testing. The machine gives you a red light to focus on. Whenever you see a green light in your peripheral vision, you press a button. This tests you don't have any blind spots. It only takes five minutes. This tests isn't necessary every two years when you go for an eye exam, it's just done every so often.
Now it's the fun part, picking your frames. There's a really great buy one get one free on in Specsavers, and you can mix and match between normal glasses and prescription sunglasses, so that's what I did!
There is a wide price range of glasses to suit all budgets, and Specsavers also cater for NHS patients with free eye tests and free glasses for those on certain benefits or tax credits.
Emma helped me choose frames that were right for me. Not only in style, but frames that fitted my nose properly so they would be comfortable.
Back at the desk with my Replay designer specs, and Red or Dead prescription sunglasses frames picked, Emma used one more machine to check my pupil alignment.
Finally a measurement is taken so the glasses can be fine tuned to perfectly fit on your ears and nose without slipping or poking.
Your glasses are then fitted with your lenses, and you can pick up the finished pairs an hour later.
I really love my new glasses, they are totally 'me'. Specsavers are also giving out golden tickets with an offer to buy another pair of glasses from their £69 and up ranges for half price. It can be used any time over the next six months, so I'll be popping back in for a second pair after Christmas.
From Ikkle Lovelies sale, £42.50
Check out these prints by the artist Roberto Sanchez. He has a set for each series so far, Murder House, Asylum and Coven.
Coven
Trash Pack series five is here. Our kids' version of our generation's Boglins and Garbage Pail Kids, the Trash Pack are sold in 'blind bags' or sets of five. The new releases come in their own yellow toilets, which my son found hilarious. He's at the anything gross is awesome stage, so we will be asking Santa for a sprinkling of Trash Pack blind bags in his Christmas stocking. Available in Tesco, Toys R Us and Smyths.
Baked in Belfast is a good old cottage industry based in Northern Ireland. Suzanne creates handmade & hand painted plaques and decorations, and all year round plates depicting Belfast landmarks and phrases.
The BakedinBelfast.com Christmas collection arrived at our house yesterday, much to my son's delight he had two snowmen, due to Suzanne knowing his nickname too. We've chatted on Twitter for a few years and my son Michael is also known as WeeSmyth, so he had a snowman ornament of each name for his own tree in his room. Thank you, Suzanne!
We also got a Welcome to the Smyths' ceramic heart, totally cute. The main tree isn't up in our house until Saturday, but this will be on there. Fancy your own family bauble? Get in contact with Suzanne on Twitter.
Now Christmas isn't Christmas without some sort of special jam or chutney making an appearance to 'oohs' and 'ahhs' of 'try a bit of this with your Brie'. Baked in Belfast is your stop for these treats too. As well as regular flavours, there are cocktail inspired jams, Christmas infused chutneys and sweet chilli flavours to zing up your cheese and crackers game. Which will you go for?
Sweet chill jam with mexicana cheese on toast.. I'm coming for you
www.bakedinbelfast.com click!
A real, full-size Christmas tree for, well, sort of for a fiver. From 7th December you can pick up a real tree from Ikea, Belfast, for £25 and they'll give you a £20 voucher to spend in the new year.
We took advantage of this offer last year. You pay inside and get a token, take it to the tree lot in the car peak and pick any tree, big, small, 6ft or 3ft, and the staff take your token and give you your £20 voucher for after Christmas. Now this isn't even a '£20 off if you spend £100' type voucher, this is an actual £20 voucher you can walk in and spend on anything come January. So if you usually buy bits and pieces in Ikea anyway, it kind of means you're getting a real Christmas tree for just a fiver out of pocket.
Last December we got our Ikea tree on the 1st, and it lasted really well. Very little needle drop. So we will see you this Saturday morning, if you too decide it's too good a deal to miss.
I can never be a HandpickedCollection.com team member. To be one of their experts you need exquisite taste, an eye for stylish gadgets and an understanding of which gifts for which friend or family member.
I don't have good taste. I live for kitsch for goodness sake. I'm about neon fake fur and glittery plastic stag heads. So when I want to find something pretty as a gift for an aunt, or my lovely Mother-in-Law, Handpicked Collection is a handy place to start.
This week they sent me a cosy pair of 100% cashmere arm warmers which will go perfectly with my cape coat that doesn't cover my lower arms.
Comes in three colour choices
The second gift Handpicked Collection sent me was this tiny key birdhouse. We only have one car key, which my husband and I share, so putting the key in one place in the hallway so it didn't go missing (I lost it in my shoe last week) is a great idea. It now goes straight into the birdhouse when we walk in the door.
Handpicked Collection is packed to the virtual rafters will gift ideas. Here are some more clever, kooky and cool items in stock now, some with 20-30% off at the moment too.
Click to take a closer look and search on HandpickedCollection,com to buy.
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As heard on BBC Radio 6's Lauren Laverne Show.
