Charlotte 121

Another experiment with the sunlight playing in
the lenses of big bifocals made for a Welsh lady
some two decades ago

Charlotte 120

A fine pensive mood portrait of Charlotte in
bifocals from Wales

Charlotte 119

These bifocals from Wales have half moon reading
segments that don't reach the low end of the frame

Charlotte 118

These nameless big bifocals were acquired in a
charity shop in Wales, some ten years back

Charlotte 117

Sleeping beauty in nameless glasses, circa 1990
[L: +5.00; c+2.00 v / R: +6.00; c+1.00 v / bif add 3.00]

Charlotte 116

Another striking portrait of Charlotte in 1980's
Bonn bifocals with a story.

The moral of the story, if the Dublin grandmother
is right: ladies, if you need strong glasses.... keep
wearing them! The alternatives are not necessarily
flattering :)

Charlotte 115

Charlotte in Bonn bifocals with a story (part 2):

When my Dublin grandmother stayed with me in
Holland, I suggested that she should have her eyes
tested - maybe it was time for her to switch to
bifocals. She did the test and got a prescription for
bifocals with a +1.25 reading addition. We chose a
lovely metal frame and a few weeks later her glasses
arrived in Dublin. The next time I stayed in Dublin
I noticed that she had switched back to her old single
vision glasses, sliding them up and down her nose.
I enquired about the bifocals and she said that she
did not like the thickness of the lenses. So I took the
bifocals back to Holland and ordered thinner lenses
for her. She was happy with the new lenses and then
gradually started using her bifocals. The optician had
given me the thicker lenses and I fitted them in an old
"Bonn" frame, bought at the Amsterdam flea market
some years earlier. With two seas between her and me,
the relationship did not last, but we still have a friendly
occasional contact. Last year I called her and she told
me that she had her eyes operated. She was now down
from +8.00 to +1.50. I said, you must be relieved -
but she wasn't: "All of a sudden I look so old, with all
the wrinkles.... Nobody ever saw those when I still had
the strong glasses and neither did I!".