BLINDSIMMING LADY

The sun-glasses that Chris eventually tracked down have reflective lenses and are close fitting with wide ear pieces. Apparently they are "Polarised wear-over" sunglasses particularly for use after cataract or similar eye operations. He has painted the inside of the lenses black and fitted some additional strips (draft strip!) at the edges to stop further light getting in. They weren’t as effective as I would have wished but certainly more than satisfactory for such outdoor trips.

The final refinement was a second pair exactly the same except not painted black inside. With these, I could satisfy myself that my appearance was good enough, perhaps for instance in Chris’s car vanitory mirror, before changing to the other glasses and becoming ‘blind’. They also had another useful function later on, as I will soon recount. The blacked-out pair, we came to refer to as my 'non-vision' glasses. The other pair as my 'restricted-vision' glasses, as they indeed are. Obviously light gets in at the sides but the wide ear-pieces prevents seeing much except straight forward, so my cane-tapping and general demeanour is still quite convincing for a partially sighted person.

 

Meanwhile, for your interest, here is a picture of Madonna wearing what we believed were 'blind-looking' glasses, together with an alternative pair worn by Terri Irwin, which we thought would also pass the test.

Mine are reflective like Terri's and squarer and larger like Madonna's