Spectacles and Straps for Travelling and Staycations

 

I need sunglasses but don't like carrying two pairs. My new glasses are Reactolite so I need only one pair when travelling. After you have protected your eyes with sunglasses, you need to protect your sunglasses.

Protective Case

I travel with a hard spectacle case to put on the bedside table. Also to use inside a handbag. I don't want to risk dropping my glasses, treading on them or sitting on them.

Finding Glasses

I choose a bright colour. So I can find them easily when searching. Also to not leave them behind accidentally. I can recognize my glasses and not think those in a black case belong to somebody else.

Glasses for travelling

If I am likely to be driving I take a spare pair with me. The old pair will do.

Donate

What can you do with unwanted glasses? Donate them to charity.

Neck Chains

Neck chains are handy if you want to sleep on the plane, sitting up.

Reading menus

Borrow glasses from somebody sitting nearby.

Reading maps

A flat magnifier like a credit card

Prescription Record

Travel with a copy of your prescription. Keep it on your phone or laptop.

Useful Websites

Reading credit card pocket magnifier - set of three for under two pounds sterling

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sme/dragon-store2012/Buy-1-get-1-at-8-off/so.html?

https://www.amazon.sg/s?k=sunglass+strap

Last things to pack and do before travelling? From windows to waterfalls

Allow a week or month for purchases to arrive, such as climbing clothes and boots, or a new suitcase. Check airline seat and order meal. Start or finish your language course.

SELLING UP?
Ebay and Amazon - for last minute purchases. Some places offer 24 hour delivery or express same day delivery for a premium.

Your old kit may be out of date. Selling off - use Gumtree.

SUITCASE
Check suitcases. Handles which won't push back in, missing wheels, or just needs a wash?
New tag for new destination. String or ribbon to identify bag.
Strap, in case locks fail.
Locks and keys.
You can buy a cover to protect your suitcase against scratches, prevent tampering, and identify your luggage from a distance. Covers are good for hard suitcases but might cover outside pockets on soft suitcases.

PACKING
List what you pack so that you can check when re-packing. I once came back with only one of a pair of slippers. Another time the baby's essential teddy was under the duvet in the cot.

My top ten list - write your own list on your phone and fridge door.

MEDICATION
Take your pills and pack your pills. Photograph prescrition in case you need a repear prescription or are challenged about your pills or lqiquids at customs. Note pills left behind and expiry date.

Keep all liquids separate.
If eating at airport, check the airport restaurants on line to save time and not miss out.

PRICES
Note prices of perfumes and wines at local supermarket and destination airport before buying at home airport.

Check currency exchange rates at airports of bothe coutnries and outside airports in both countries. Allow time for: to change currency and go to airport lounge and toilets and hunt for trolleys and check in queue (Americans say line up).

KEYS & PASSWORDS
Note or remember passwords.
Take keys and travel passes.
Leave behind duplicate keys and travel passes.

NUMBERS
Note your frequent flyer numbers.
Note your passport number.

WASHING
Vaccuum floors. Wash bedding and pillowcases.

FOOD & DRINK
Take water for your journey. Ideally use a small container which can be emptied to save litter and clutter.
Empty food bins and clear from fridge perishable items.

Check weather at destination. Take an umbrella and packable sunhat.

SPECTACLES
Wear a glasses chain so you can attack your spectacles when asleep on a flight or dozing whilst waiting. Note your prescription in your diary so that if your spectacles break you don't need to pay for an eye test. If you know your prescription you can order glasses on line.

Emergency - forgot or broke glasses? Many supermarkets sell glasses. If you have different eyes these will not work long term and would give you headaches. However to quickly read a map, or a restaurant menu, the cheapest off the rack glasses will get yu through, even if you have to shut one eye. you could also borrow somebody else's glasses.

We did this once at a wedding when my husband forgot his reading lgasses. He had not planned on reading any books and forgot about trying to read a restaurant menu in dim lighting. 

READING MATERIAL OR GAMES OR MUSIC
Take education or entertainment material for journeys and delays. Novel. Novel you are writing. Music. Language course for destination.

STATIONERY
Take a new notebook, and diary. Map of destination. Print alphabet or word list.

GOODBYES & HELLOS
Say goodbye to friends or colleagues and leave contact details.
Remind destination family, friends and colleagues that you are arriving.

Confirm flight check in and seat. (Meals must be booked 24 hours early.)

GOODBYES
Allow time to say goodbye to neighbours. You may wish to give them spare keys, plants to water, or pets.

Leave instructions as to which relatives or gardeners or wind cleaners are likely to visit and who should be let in and who should be prevented from entering or reported.

If you have a burglar alarm, ensure somebody nearby can turn it off.

GIFTS
Find out what your relatives want brought back from a holiday destination. You might want their size in clothes or shoes. Would they prefer clothes, stationery, ornaments or only practical items, food or drink, alcohol, no alcohol, cigarettes, no cigarettes, something with their name on, a joke item or item with a joke on it, or nothing?

ORDER CABS
Order cab at departure point.
Order cab at arrival.

COUNT BAGS
Count your suitcases, bags, umbrellas, cameras, and coats, duty free and magazines and newspapers and food bags.

KEEP EVERYTHING ATTACHED
Have several systems. Write down the number of items and/or photograph them.
This also helps when reporting a loss.

Never put anything down.

I lost a silver ring on a washbasin. Always put jewellery in your bag or around your neck on a chain with a secure fastener, not a ribbons with a knot which could slip, nor a t bar which could come undone.

Wallets and keys and bags placed on top of a car foor as you unlock the door are asking to be left bhind. A bag behind the car boot, before you drive off - or drive over it.

We did that. My husband reversed out of a driveway in London over my travel bag and brolly. He said it was my fault and I said it was his fault. Never put anything down behind a car unless you are hiding from terrorists.

PACKING LIGHT FOR A SHORT TRIP?
Pack light. Cito o-ordinate clothes. Vary with scarves and jewllery. Wear heaviest shoes. Choose reversible dress and jackets. convertisble trousers which shorten p into a tab. Check all buttons are secure. Sew down zip ends so zip pull does not pull off. Have ribbons to tie or elastic to secure hats from blowing away.
Reversible scarf.
Pack clothes which was out overnight.
Remember night dress and swimsuit and swimhat.
Take sewing kit.

TIME TO AIRPORT
Allow extra time. In Singapore after dark you can see the lights on the multi-storey atrium waterfall at Jewel shopping mall.

Photo by Matteo Morando in Wikipedia article on Jewel.

Changi Airport also has a Butterfly Garden on two levels.

Useful Websites
Several youtube videos show you how to pack light, even for a long trip.
To sell items
Gumtree is in the UK, Australia, South Africa and Singapore.
https://www.gumtree.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumtree
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/08/packing-for-trek-what-weight.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to yuur favourite posts.

Fixing Broken Spectacles When Travelling

Problem
On holiday in Madeira, I was sitting down for lunch on a maountin trail, hiking, when a fly zoomed across my vision. I yanked at the right of my spectacle frmae to pull off my glasses. The tinted lens fell. I found it. But the screw was missing.

Answer
The screw was in my lap. I carefull saved it inside a zip up plast see-through bag. I placed that with a note warning about the contents of the bag, so as to find the screw and be sure neighter I nor any other tidy minded person throw away or filed and stored the bag. I stored the bag in a zip up pocket, not just a flap pocket, to be sure it did not fall out and blow away.

Back at the hotel, we used a lens repair kit which we always carry to repair the spectacles.

Back in London, England, I went into the shop where I had bought the glasses. I had worried slightly that:
a) They would say the glasses were broken and buy another pair
b) They would have to send the glasses away for repair so I would be without for a week

I remembered that my late father who was an optiician would always do minor repairs such as adjusting glasses or tightening a screw for free.

I wished I had gone in straight away rather than postponing it and worrying for two and a half days.

The man in the Eyecare was so charming.

When he disappeared behind a screen I decided to follow and find out what he was doing. Always a useful exercise.

First he tightened the screw with pliers. But his pliers had a plastic cover over the end so that they did not damage the frame or lens.

Then he placed the scapectacles, open, on the desk top 'to check balance'. Were the two sides level.

Before leaving, I asked if he had a cheap pair of spectacles I could buy as a spare.

The cheapest he had were £100. That is frames only. I would have to add on an extra hundred or two for triple focus lenses, trifocals, for distance, computer in mid-distance, and close up for reading a book or menu, plus Reactolite (reacting to light, making them dark) so they go dark automatcially when you step out of a restaurant into the sun. (I think Boots sell them cheaper - but on a rack for children and the free or subsidised glasses for the impecunious.)

I had noticed in Madeira that glasses curently seem to have gone back to large and round, instead of small and oblong. I had an opportunity to update my glasses with a new frame, albeit a cheaper one.

I can drive safely becuase I can see pretty well in the distance without glasses. I could read a menu close-up using off the peg glasses, or borrowed reading glasses, or old reading glasses.

However, the computer screen is the problem. I want to use that all the time.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

No Reading Glasses - Borrow Some?

Problem - dark and no glasses
I wake in the night and go to type an idea on my computer. I should have left my spectacles on the computer so they were there when I needed them. But I was reading in bed. Now my spectacles are in another room and I don't want to wake somebody else by looking for them. Even just walking from one room to another or turning on a corridor light can be a disturbance.

Solutions - lights and reading glasses
Maybe I could install low-level lights in the sockets to aid walking to the bathroom or backwards and forwards in the night and the dark of early morning in the northern hemisphere. I should have a second, spare pair of reading glasses by the computer.

New Glasses In One Hour
In Singapore and the UK you can have simple reading glasses made within an hour. Take in your prescription choose a frame, go off for a coffee and come back and your glasses are ready.

This might work, or not work, if you need simple glasses for reading, or if they can do long-distance glasses which you need for driving.

Dark, Dawn
In Singapore and Asia the sun comes up suddenly at dawn. In the USA, Europe and the UK, further from the equator, we have four seasons and dark dawns in winter time. When get up early it's dark outside and in.

Light Wakes You
Normally the light wakes you, the dark sends you to sleep. I think the light in the bathroom is too bright. It wakes me. I should install a second dimmer light just for night use.

Borrowed Reading Glasses
Meanwhile, back at the computer, I see somebody else's reading glasses. Why not give them a try?

I first discovered this works at a wedding when I could not read the menu and somebody at my table loaned me their glasses for a minute so I could check on the choices for the main course whent he waiter came round to take the order. Problem was solved.

On another occasion I picked up somebody else's glasses by mistake. I could read - but not see at a distance. They weren't my glasses! But they did work for reading.

I don't want to strain my eyes using somebody else's glasses. My eyes are different, one better than the other. However, I want help now. Go on - try it!

Yes, sure enough, I can read and type this. I know that it's not a good idea to use somebody else's glasses on a permanent basis. It will re-set my eyes which are used to my varifocals. But it's a temporary solution to my problem. It could solve yours.

Author
Angela Lansbury, author and speaker, travel writer and photographer.

Some Travel Statistics - how are tourists counted, and recognized?

Problem
I've just read that Europe is the world's top travel destination. But how are they counting that? By flights, hotel rooms booked, people employed, numbers of hotels and restaurants, money generated, restaurant meals, museum and attractions entrance fees?

Who says? A European.

These statistics are being collected all the time. We are being counted. Advertisers want to know how many people will see an advertisement on a railway station, by a bus stop, overlooking a motorway junction or the city center.

London, England

AMERICA
When we lived in America we travelled constantly, every weekend. We drove in a car. Our car's numberplate identified where we were from. When we spoke, our accent identified us as English.

You can also be identified by your clothes.

Story
Year's ago I was with my parents, who lived in London, on holiday in Marbella, Spain. As we walked around the shops, my father would say of a nearby or passing couple, "They're British!"

I asked, "How do you know? Did you hear them speak?"

"No," replied my father. "They were wearing national health spectacles." (My father was an opthalmic optician.)

The inter-city railways need to know how many return tickets they have sold to calculate the numbers of trains and coaches in each direction, the numbers of replacement buses when there is an accident or breakdown, the numbers of train drivers, ticket inspectors, cleaners, snack sellers with trolleys, dining cars, the demand for overnight couchettes (sleeping bunks).

Analysing Statistics
When numbers don't tally, they look for a reason. How many people going through turnstiles went the wrong way because they were lost, jumped over the barrier, used a free staff pass?

Some were employees on their way to their job. Did any use a stolen card or re-use a card? How many expected travellers were missing because they missed the last train?

Safety
Did somebody jump off the platform? Only one - but maybe several each year), and that caused hundreds of commuters to abort their journeys.  missed their connection, fell off a train or cruise ship, went into hospital, came down with seasonal flu, got drunk?

Maybe some overslept, or stayed the night in the city with family or at a hotel?

Successful Marketing
Reduced prices attract travellers and tourists. Those in the travel trade are watching us travelling. We, in turn, are watching them, watching us.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Be Prepared - travelling with tissues

Problem
What should you carry to be prepared?

Answer
Basic emergency medical supplies, which for most people would include paper tissues, a sticking plaster or two, and an aspirin or panadol.
Some people carry water and a chocolate bar or an apple on any journey. Others take a plastic container with a secure lid for leftover food. (If it's big enough, it could also be an emergency potty for children or adults if you break down on the motorway in snow or fog or get stuck in a ski lift.)

Stories
1 A Facebook friend, David Astbury, told us how he supplied a fabric handkerchief to stop the bleeding of a child who fell of mother's lap at a wedding. I replied:
The magic is not in having a fabric handkerchief - paper tissues would have done just as well. The magic is knowing in which pocket you have placed the handkerchief or tissue in order to produce it instantly on demand. The average person can spend twenty minutes searching for a paper tissue, a door key, a train ticket, their spectacles, their handbag, or the right coins for payment at a till. I know. I'm an average person. Trying to be above average. A place for everything and everything in the correct pocket.
Angela Lansbury, author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In (a book I wrote to remind myself of everything the rest of the family and the world had taught me, all of which I forgot until and after I wrote the book.)
2 I was stuck on a three person ski chairlift in America, with two other people. Balanced in mid-air. Can't even wriggle or reach in a pocket. No food or toilet. Sitting in the cold. Eventually saw people ahead being removed by a rescuer who was abseiling. Then a megaphone told us the lifts would be starting again.
Why do you need tissues? To blow your nose. Emergency toilet paper. Mopping up spills when you talk with your hands and spill wine or water. For the child or adult who starts bleeding.

Tips
1 Before leaving the house check your checklist - which could be stuck on the back of the front door or in your phone or diary:
2 Address and phone number of people and place you are visiting. Ideally phone to check they are open and will welcome you.
3 Depending on your location, you might also carry a small umbrella.
4 Carry a pen and paper and a business card.
5 Mobile phone.
6 Paper tissues.
7 Hat and gloves.
8 Wear white at night. (To be seen by traffic when crossing the road.) I keep a white scarf or hat or bag handy. Failing all else, carry a newspaper. A newspaper is also handy if you sit on one of those cold metal seats at a railway station. (But newsprint is black so don't sit on a black newsprint item wearing a wet or white or light colour coat.)
9 Go to the toilet before a journey, even a short one on a ski lift.


AUTHOR
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
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