Comments | themolesmother: Spectacles and all that

themolesmother

Spectacles and all that

May 02, 2006 20:27

First of all, welcome to everyone who has recently friended me. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all better. And a big thanks to mctabby for making it all possible.

We’ve just come back from a trip to the nearest big town, the main purpose of which was to get me a prescription for a new pair of glasses. I wasn’t looking forward to this part at ( Read more... )

Comments 8

avari_elf May 2 2006, 18:44:02 UTC

Not all doctors are that bad - usually, gossip is a good way to know which are the ones you'd rather avoid.
Anyway, I guess there's also the fact doctors and patients behave differently from country to country: my parents can't stand the doctors in South Korea, and my sister studiously avoids English doctors in London. ;)

themolesmother May 3 2006, 07:33:13 UTC

Not all doctors are that bad - usually, gossip is a good way to know which are the ones you'd rather avoid.

Yes, you're dead right. My Dutch friend was given the name of this opthamologist guy as the only one who had appointments free within a reasonable period of time but was told he wasn't very good, so I knew what I was letting myself in for. At least now I have a prescription I can hunt around for someone decent next time and book an appointment in good time - apparently average waiting time is about 6 months here in Burgundy.

... my sister studiously avoids English doctors in London ...

*Grin* I don't blame her. Tell her if she ever moves to Reading I can recommend the one decent GP in the whole town.

I suppose my problem really is that I'm not a fan of the medical profession in general. From the time my infant son's projectile vomiting (caused by a defomity of the stomach) was initally misdiagnosed by my health visitor and GP as my delusion bought on by post-natal depression, I've distrusted doctors. I tend to want ( ... )

loupnoir May 2 2006, 19:56:49 UTC

*waves*

I'm ready for lots of life in France discussion. I want to move to Normandy you see and I'm looking for tidbits on life there.

We visited Burgundy a long time ago and enjoyed it. I'd like to go back and see Dijon and Vezelay again -- without the fog.

*Salutes you with a nice glass of California Cabernet*

themolesmother May 3 2006, 07:44:56 UTC

I'm ready for lots of life in France discussion. I want to move to Normandy you see and I'm looking for tidbits on life there.

Happy to talk about my experiences of living here until the Charolais cows come home - just hope I don't bore you :-). For specific info about life in Normandy you might want to take a look at La Vie Normande on http://www.vienormande.com/. which is run by a group of British ex-pats. Their main moderator is a Brit who has lived in France for some time and who has given sensible advice to me in the past.

We're about an hour's drive south of Dijon in the Cote Chalonnaise, and we get the fog, too. Late November/early December there's lots of it.

MM

snorkackcatcher May 3 2006, 19:01:57 UTC

Ouch. I thought my glasses were expensive at £100 when Specsavers apparently do two pairs for half that ... by the sound of it, it really might be cheaper to take a day trip to the UK and get them there!

themolesmother May 4 2006, 11:53:58 UTC

Mine are varifocals, so they've always been a bit more expensive - I think I paid around £150 for my current pair not long before we left the UK, and this was on an offer where I got a pair of prescription sunglasses thrown in. I do wish I'd simply popped into an opticians when I was last in the UK in November. What dissuaded me from doing so was that I pay fairly steep contributions on my obligatory health insurance, and I knew that entitled me to get a proportion of the cost back if I got specs here. I wanted my money's worth!

At the end of the day it'll probably cost me about the same as in the UK. I get 65% of the cost back (eventually) from the securite sociale, which leaves me paying out around 200 euros (£143), if you add together the cost of my eye test and what I'll have to pay on the spectacles. Our friend who owns Borrowed Dog has recommended an optician that does "buy a pair get one free" deals, and will let you pay over three months, so we're going to pay them a visit next week.

MM

lorena_snape May 6 2006, 00:56:30 UTC

Thanks for the welcome!

And we too have to go to the eye doc soon, all of us (myself, husband and dear daughter). Though I will probably just have husband go at first, then us later, to avoid such a whopping bill. And I know husband's will be expensive as he is terribly farsighted, so to avoid having coke-bottle lenses, he has to have high-index ones, which for his prescrip can be quite expensive.

Remember, for as bad as the eye doc can be, at least it wasn't the dentist. *grin*

themolesmother May 6 2006, 09:09:40 UTC

Remember, for as bad as the eye doc can be, at least it wasn't the dentist. *grin*

One of the nice things about life in France for me is that I have finally found a briliant dentist :-). Monsieur Petit is a star. I have one dodgy crown that regularly falls out and needs replacing so I see quite a lot of him. Even hubby likes him and he's terrified of dentists, having had some nasty experiences with army dentists in his youth.

MM