cataract operation

I suppose that it is difficult to get any average response to an eye condition and all of us view the world differently, i have finally made it through the making of the windows and shutters for the house in france and managed to work with my vision very much impaired, it has been an odd experience but not all that worrying. When some years ago I heard of my Mother and eldest brother, having to have cataract operations I assumed the operation was to scrape the lens and there by remove the offending opaque part of the lens, leaving a clear but thinner lens. Long before that I guess I would have imagined that Monet was almost blind, lacking sight, because of his cataracts. The real answer is that the lens is not like that, the lens is a clear sack that envelopes a protein lens, the protein with time will become harder and lose its transparency, we are all living longer and that is the first real reason for the cataract to form, degradation of the protein with time. It has been described as the white of an egg that is gradually warmed and begins to turn from transparent to white as well as hardening.
I had suffered a degree of problems with my eye and this culminated last summer in a detached retina. The operation meant that my eye had to be cut open and the retina reattached, with great skill my surgeon did the operation and in so much the operation was a success. I have however, since that date had my eyesight gradually change and deteriorate, it has been slower than my surgeon thought, he told me within two months of the operation that I had the signs of a cataract developing and that was normal as the eye reacted to the surgery. I have gradually upped my specs from -3.0 to -8.5 and then realised that I needed to see the surgeon about an operation, I did this on my return to Edinburgh during may this year and we decided on a date three weeks before I was due back to Brazil. It was then that I decided to look up the operation on the internet, still un aware of what was to be done, everyone uses the phrases like scraping the lens, when in fact the lens is removed and an artificial one is put in its place.
The process is simple but not without great skill from the surgeon, the eye is first treated to several drops of dilating fluid, spaced out over several hours, then in the theatre I was given injections of local anaesthetic into both eyelids and three injections into the eye itself, not that comfortable and much like the soreness that you would get from the dentist injecting into the top gum of your mouth.
The process is to cut a small hole into the front of the sac that holds the lens, this is done by inserting a thin rod of a lazer and the surgeon burns a hole with it, for my part there was no discomfort , I watched as the lazer formed a circle of grey, then an ultra sound rod is inserted through the same tiny cut, about 2 mm round, this is used to mash the old lens into a fluid which is then withdrawn through a tube and is much like a vacuum cleaning around the inside of the clear sack, a faint wobbly image is the next sign that the surgeon had slipped in the new lens. This is a soft lens that is some how fold into a tiny tube and injected into the empty lens sack, once inside the lens unfolds to fill the cavity. It is then followed by the surgeon injecting an anti biotic into the same pocket and the operation is finished, I do not know the time taken but would think that the time in theatre was not much more than 20 minutes, I had arrieved at the hospital at 15.00, went to surgery just after 17.00 and was back in the waiting area having tea and sandwiches by 18.00, then collected at 18.30.
I am now on some drops into the eye for the next week and careful not to get any infection, my eye was not ready to see the world when i left the hospital, it was ready to acknowledge light but not much more, the next morning I found i could get some vision and I am at the moment finding a daily improvement in clarity and focus. Colours are my most immediate response to the operation, all are so much more vivid and good contrast, for I had found that before it I was looking with a blurred, misty and pale vision. I am very short sighted in my left eye and have glaucoma as well, so at the moment I am not able to wear my specs since the new lens is almost perfect vision setting and I had a -8.5 sight before in that eye, so I will have to wait for the right eye to become stable before I can go to the optician again and get a new prescription to suite both eyes as they are now. My surgeon is going to take a look at the left eye this comming monday, I feel that i would like to have a corrective lens put into that eye to leave me with balanced vision and no need to wear specs other than for reading, this may depend on whether my surgeon feels that there is good enough reasons to do the operation, I think there are but realise that any operation as its risks and possible side effects, i would be silly to risk a new detached retina or worsen the already bad glaucoma in the left eye, but the positive effect of having both eyes with good lens and no specs seems a great prospect...... see how I go....I had the operation on Tuesday evening and it is Friday afternoon now........

The Independents view of the Gers.2001

Two nights ago,Nadine and I had dinner guests of the owners of the Chateau de Monluc , here in St Puy, the madame Lassus, her son and grand daughter. Nadine had been to La Rochele to visit her parents and there bought a large quantity of oysters and small clams, so she had invited Noel and his daughter Matilda, for dinner of oysters and salad of tomatoes from her small vegatable garden. Noel's father had died just recently and his mother was invited to come to this very humble abode. Madame de Monluc is a very young looking 79 year old, elegant and very attractive, quiet French voice and equally gentile when speaking English to me. She told me of her time when younger, in Yorkshire, England, and how the local paper, I presume the Yorkshire Post, had written a nice and informed article about her late husband. He evidently did a lot to modernise the wine industry here in the Gers and certainly has produced good wines, possibly more noticeably good with he sparkling wines. here is the Independents article from 2001, it is very much the same now and only the prices will need to be reviewed.Chateau Monluc: Tastings of Floc, Methode traditionale (champagne), Pousse Rapiere, rose and red wines. Guided tours of the cellars and chateau. Located in St Puy, Gers.
Tel: 05 62 28 94 00 Fax: 05 62 28 55 70

The Gers: All for one and down the hatch

The Gers region of France is justly proud of its favourite son, D?Artagnan, and its equally famous Armagnac. Jane Knight goes in search of both the man and the drink

The look of incredulity on Madame de Castelbajac's face when I confided that I thought D'Artagnan was just a fictional character had to be seen to be believed. She didn't actually throw up her hands in horror but she left me in no doubt that, while D'Artagnan may well have been immortalised as the naive young hero of Alexander Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers, any Gascon worth their foie gras knows he was born and brought up in the Gers. I had just insulted the region's most revered personality.

The look of incredulity on Madame de Castelbajac's face when I confided that I thought D'Artagnan was just a fictional character had to be seen to be believed. She didn't actually throw up her hands in horror but she left me in no doubt that, while D'Artagnan may well have been immortalised as the naive young hero of Alexander Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers, any Gascon worth their foie gras knows he was born and brought up in the Gers. I had just insulted the region's most revered personality.

This little corner of south-west France is peppered liberally with musketeer references, from its food and drink to statues and street names. So it is no surprise that the latest movie version of Dumas's swashbuckling tale was partly filmed here in the heart of Gascony at the Château de Caumont at Cazaux Saves, which is owned by the Castelbajac family. For a week, the château on the easterly edge of the Gers some 25 miles from Toulouse resounded to the sound of cantering horses as D'Artagnan was resurrected once again in The Musketeer.

I moved on quickly from my faux pas. Meanwhile, Madame de Castelbajac was telling me how, when film-makers created a huge fire for one scene, she was scared that the beautiful 16th-century building, which is open to the public, would burn down. A fire had already ravaged one part of the three-sided château in 1640.

I set off armed with a copy of Dumas's epic novel to the other side of the Gers to discover more about their local hero. It takes less than two hours to cross this gently rolling land full of sunflowers and vines. Ducks outnumber people by more than 20 to one and British cars are in a blessed minority. The further west you go, the proliferation of signs advertising foie gras for sale become interspersed with billboards for Armagnac.

Gascony's most famous hero was born Charles de Batz de Castelmore in about 1611, close to the village of Lupiac. At his childhood home, the Château de Castelmore, a prominent "private property" sign is hung up outside the slumbering, shuttered manor. But driving into Lupiac, I found the D'Artagnan Centre, an incredibly informative little museum which helped me to fill in the blanks about the musketeer's real life.

One of eight children born into minor nobility, Charles followed the tradition of the younger sons by leaving his homeland to seek his fortune as a soldier in Paris, eventually joining the Musketeers, an elitist regiment of guards armed with muskets. The period was characterised by plots and wars, and D'Artagnan – who took his name from his mother's family – soon distinguished himself as captain lieutenant. He was so well regarded that the French king and the dauphin were godfathers to his two sons. After he was killed in 1673 during the siege of Maestricht in Flanders, the king held a special service in his own chapel.

It's a pretty exciting story. But obviously it wasn't good enough for Dumas, who based his novels on D'Artagnan's memoirs. Dumas didn't exactly feel constrained by the facts. He claimed history was only the nail on which he hung his stories, and he had no qualms in taking D'Artagnan to Paris 15 years early to become a hero under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu rather than under Louis XIV and Cardinal Mazarin.

As for his romantic side, the little we do know is that D'Artagnan's wife left him because he preferred court and battlefield to house and home. If local knowledge is to be believed, he quite liked Armagnac too. Along with other Gascon soldiers, D'Artagnan is widely credited with making the drink popular in Parisian society. I didn't need much more of an incentive than that. I hurried off to investigate this charming little aside.

With about a thousand Armagnac producers in the area, it wasn't difficult to find one. Most are concentrated around Eauze and the town of Condom. Just a few kilometres south of Condom, the Château de Cassaigne has the advantage of being both an Armagnac producer and an interesting historic building. It was a bishop's residence in medieval times, and the château's pièce de résistance is the 16th-century kitchen with its peculiar stone ceiling. This is the place to learn about the liquor rather than the boring and unenlightening Museum of Armagnac in Condom.

Armagnac differs from cognac in that it involves a single rather than a double distillation and its production is limited by royal charter to a certain region. The still was brought to France by the Moors, who used it for scientific rather than alcoholic purposes, and the first mention of Armagnac can be traced back to the 13th century, when it was used by apothecaries for its disinfectant properties. As well as Armagnac itself, there are a host of liquors based on the brandy and a number of different fruits soaked in it. "There's a bit of a crisis in the after-dinner drinks market," confided manager Thierry Roques, adding that today's younger generation doesn't have time to sit after a meal and mull over the good things of life. "All the producers are trying to develop pre-dinner drinks."

Appropriately in D'Artagnan land, I discovered Pousse Rapier ("'sword thruster"), an Armagnac and orange liquor added to sparkling wine, which is particular to the Château Monluc in nearby St-Puy. It's far cheaper to buy Pousse Rapier at Château Monluc than in the region's gift shops, and besides, the château is worth a visit both for the magnificent view from its hilltop perch and its 15th-century stone floor with sunken reservoir.

At the Domain de Laguille near Eauze, Colette and Guy Vignoli make Glengers, an Armagnac with an interestingly complex malt whisky perfume. Glengers also has a somewhat tenuous musketeer connection. The story goes that in 1724, the then musketeer captain Nicolas de Terlon came back from Quebec where he was serving. Together with Aramis and Porthos, he created a drink in memory of their dead friend, D'Artagnan, by mixing Armagnac with maple syrup, which Terlon had brought from Canada.

Head north from the Domain de Laguille and you'll find Larressingle, a tiny and unspoilt medieval fortified village. It takes about five minutes to walk round the village after crossing the stone drawbridge over a dry moat. The rest of the time you can enjoy a mellow moment by admiring the church from the crêperie opposite and munching crêpes flambéed in (you guessed it) Armagnac. And you can't really visit the Château de Cassaigne without stopping off at the impressive Cistercian Abbey of Flaran on the way.

Don't even think of going to the Gers if you're on a diet. And if you don't like duck, you'll be hard pushed to avoid the oodles of foie gras and confit, the leg of the force-fed duck fried in its own fat.

But it's difficult not to think about Armagnac here. I found Armagnac munchies all over the place – in Condom, opposite the cathedral, there's a delightful little shop that makes Armagnac chocolates and Armagnac ice cream is a must-have at Auch. Both cities are worth a visit for more than their culinary lures: their narrow cobbled streets, medieval buildings and stunning cathedrals make for a pleasant afternoon's wandering. Auch's cathedral has a magnificent Renaissance façade and some of the best stained-glass windows in France. Just behind it is a statue of D'Artagnan. He stands proudly, his hand on his sword. Pity he isn't holding a flask of Armagnac as well.

The facts

Getting there

Jane Knight flew with Air France (0845 0845 111, www.airfrance. co.uk) from Heathrow to Toulouse. Prices start at £78 plus tax.

Being there

Termes d'Armagnac: Domaine de Labarthe chambres d'hôtes (0033 5 62 69 24 97) where you'll get a friendly welcome, well-decorated rooms with china ducks everywhere and a view of the tower at Termes d'Armagnac plus some of the best food in the region for £28 for two.

Condom: Hotel de Trois Lys (0033 5 62 28 33 33) in an old townhouse where a room for two costs £59. A delicious three-course evening meal can be had for £9.

Eating there

Le Florida at Castera-Verduzan (0033 562 681322) is widely considered to have one of the best menus in the Gers, with set meals from £13.80. Le Florida and other top chefs in the district have grouped themselves into an association called the Circle of Musketeers.

Further information

France Information Line (09068 244 123 at 60p a minute; www.france guide.com).

sun shines and the grapes ripen, butterflies and bees pass each other, whilst the swallows swoop past my decanted red wine

I guess the best is still to come, i arrived with very little idea of what might be install and have been balled over by the daily nouveau. it is rich in social values, it makes you feel special and the weather is great, a true experience and I will value this for many years. I have slightly fallen foul of the cat, but I reckon by tomorrow she will have reconsidered our friendship and realised that the thorn that I have just removed from her nose, was removed for best motives , and her meal will be the better for its removal.
I finally decided to do the electrics for the workshop, having waited for Michael to get a better price it seems best for me to do it at cost and get on with the making of Michaels windows. So yesterday and today I have been running the band saw and the planer, cutting and preparing oak for the windows at the Bergerie.
George has been in every day to cut the grass and bushes in the area that will one day be a garden, and today he took me into Condom in his car, to buy a small electric grinder, the trip was memorable in that I will avoid him taking me to anywhere in the future, he simply does not look at the road when driving, I could feel my feet reaching for a none obtainable break, on many occasions, but is chatter was good, as the Irish say, the crack was good, and I am still alive.
St Puy is incredible, it is like a film set, a novella, a soap opera, everyone knows every one, but not as well as the other person, and all the gossip is therefore the better for the knowledge of who knows who, and the general rivalry is evident in the conversations of all of the people living here. George is possibly the worst for maligning folks, but everyone feels they know best and are keen to give their penny's worth.
Nadine, Tristan and Ingrid have gone to Paris, Tristan and Ingrid live there, Nadine will return today or tomorrow, so it will get me back to trying some French, the other two speak English and rathjer prefered to speak it than hear my poor recital of their beautiful language. I have surprised myself in coping, I can hardly speak the language and the need to buy machines and tools does not help my confidence, still it is good to have a go and I am now better than I was. By the way any spelling errors are largely due to my declining eyesight, I am now having difficulty, I have spent ages today grinding a cutter that should have taken a few minutes.