Tadpoles

I am quite discombobulated. The 'Blogger' format has changed. At my age all change is guilty until proven innocent. I've established that there is still a 'Save' click-on and still a 'Publish', all up instead of down and much paler than I remember. Maybe ink is costing more or it's cost-effective to discombobulate or both of the above.It also says 'Preview' and 'Close.' What on earth could they mean? Anyway, if the Wizard of Cyberspace allows me to get to the end of this post, we shall discover if what you see out there, particularly in Mountain View California, stays the same. Seriously, though, change is practically non-negotiable when you are seven score and more than ten years - much. The change which got me to the computer is about tadpoles. One of Liz's eyes now houses two tadpoles. This is change in spades - well, baby frogs, let's say. The Father of my Children had this same experience and was then discovered to have a detached retina. Because of what he went through,it was Post Haste to the Doctor. From hence booked in to the eye clinic; on Saturday morning, if you please. That surely makes it serious, doesn't it? No, of course it doesn't, merely precautionary. I am quite happy to house un-serious tadpoles, or even frogs, come to that, but I'd rather not detach my retina. Himself spent weeks upside down on his bed. What would happen to my beloved four-legged best friend? Equally, my lodger, my campers, the washing machine? I did try washing them off my fringe, wiping off my mascara, putting drops in my eyes. Nothing worked. Thus, to the medics went I. (Something to do with Shakespeare's birthday, I suspect in my verb inversion) Think of me, to-morrow morning, no make-up - because they put drops in your eyes, silly - and no car because you can't see properly for several hours after they look in to the nethers of your optics. Which brings me to another change. Walking down to the hospital, I shall catch sight, in the various shop windows I pass, of this waddly old lady lurching along, the be-prammed babies staring at her third leg, and wonder where went the elegant stride of yesteryear; off with the melted snows, I suppose. I watch people walking on the open land opposite where I live and follow the known paths with my inner eye - the one without the tadpoles - and feel quite jealous. More, my curly hair has stopped being curly. It has more or less agreed to keep its colour but it has given up its mojo. The man who cuts it has at last given in and given it a shape that doesn't depend on curl. Relief all round, though a very different look in the mirror and a very different technique with the brush. I like it. Not one person dear to me whom I have seen since this catastrophic reversal has even noticed. I am both changed and invisible. A waddling, three-legged tadpole-housing eccentric blogger with straight hair who can't tell, from the new format, how much she has written. Perhaps, when I eventually turn in to a frog someone will kiss me and turn me in to a Princess. That'll do nicely. Nos da.