This is the day of my eye appointment during which my eyes are examined for a stability or reversal of my macular degeneration. you never know how long you’re going to be in the hospital. It could be three hours. I don’t complain because if I had the job done privately would be about £1500 a visit. As it happened I did need another injection. injections in the eye must sound pretty for bidding but the needle is tiny and the doctors are so good at their job you hardly notice it.

I’m going to start a travel information exchange group in Bath and today I am going to look at a couple of places including one called the Percy centre, the other a local YMCA. The key thing about choosing someone is that it must look friendly. There’s nothing worse than staring around like an idiot not knowing where to go and so signage has to be good. First impressions count and when you visit a strange place it is the first few seconds that matter, that assurance. I was more impressed with the YMCA  because it already has the vibe of travel. People are either coming from somewhere interesting, or going to somewhere interesting. The Percy centre had one good room I must admit that the other one was downstairs through two flights of steps at the back through a door along a corridor and I don’t think that’s quite what we want.

While in the hospital I had a chat with a man, a citizen of the United Kingdom who when going on holiday had been deported from India. He went along to get his Visa at India house and it was all stamped appropriately but when he turned up at Mumbai his authenticity was questioned. It turned out that the clerk in the UK has left one number off the Visa. In spite of the photographic evidence,

and the substantial correspondence of the details, the poor traveler was left waiting in a room for eight hours without anything to eat or drink and put on the next plane back to the United Kingdom. He was not allowed a phone call and he was not allowed any other type of assistance. It does make you wonder sometimes what it is in human nature that simply cuts off from all sense and logic. Are people afraid of losing their jobs?

Anyway, when I got home we agreed that we would start with the YMCA and take it from there.  I will have a meeting about mid March.