Sit Rep, as they say in the action movies

It has been a busy few days, and seems much longer than it has actually been.

We are in Birmingham again, staying once more at the Edgbaston Park Hotel on the university campus. A very nice place, excellent service, friendly staff and the food is pretty good. Only downside is that their only chardonnay has no oak ...

So, the following have occurred:

• the appointment with Professor Peter Shah early on Friday morning, where he examined David's right eye closely, and informed us of his not so tentative expectation that an operation would be needed to remove the scar tissue, because if it's not, it will keep growing until he has  no sight left in that eye
• the series of ultrasounds on both eyes (very interesting to watch) late on Friday morning, followed by a quick additional consultation with Peter after he had spoken with Dr Good, the ultrasound man about the pictures
• on Friday afternoon the Goldmann Visual Field Test was done by Mr Williams. It is apparently the best VF test for complex eyes and takes almost an hour to do both eyes. It gives great accuracy because the light source is moved by hand and recorded manually, allowing greater granularity and alteration of the speed of the light source movement - important for people with poor sight
• the appointment with Peter again this morning for him to check the drainage holes in both eyes (they have a proper name but I cannot remember it) and to answer questions:
• why won't the scar tissue grow back? There won't be the structure for it to do so.
• what limitations will David have post-operatively and for how long? No heavy lifting for at least a fortnight. No doing locks during that time.
• the appointment for retinal scanning with Mr Rustom Bativala - that was a four hour appointment and fascinating to watch. He was very pleased to get some excellent images, given both he and Peter thought that it was unlikely much of use would be able to be captured. It was a long long appointment for David and required much concentration to keep his eyes as still as possible. Those of you who know him know that the nystagmus (involuntary movement) is rather marked and he did very well. Of course, the right eye now has only 0.75mm of a peephole instead of the whole of the pupil (4 - 5mm), so there was a bit of magic being performed by Rustom ...

We have the follow up appointment with Peter Shah for discussion of the test results and treatment options first thing Monday morning. At each appointment, he has flagged the need for the scar tissue in the anterior capsule to be removed. So that is almost certainly what is going to happen - the only uncertainty is the timing of that, but we keep hearing the words 'in a week or a fortnight'. We are fairly sure it will be done at The Birmingham Eye Hospital, and we also know it will require an overnight stay there.

We had the late afternoon free today, so we came back to the hotel and had a late lunch with G&T and a mojito. Then a nana nap, unsurprisingly.

The hotel bar has a special section for gins - there are over 70 of them. Of course, we just have Gordon's ...

Waiting for our late lunch. I gave most of my G&T to David after the waitress decided she COULD make a mojito for me when I showed her the recipe on my phone ... I am going to have to buy white rum for the boat, and make sure the mint is flourishing!

Yesterday we had walked to the rooms in Edgbaston for the Goldmann VF test, and then walked on into the city to have dinner at Siamais, the Thai restaurant and cocktail bar that we went to a couple of years ago with John Knighton when we boated into the city.

Brindley Place moorings - a surprisingly quiet in the middle of the city

Cocktails at Siamais - my mojito and David's Meditation Inebriation - tequila, infused with chilli, with orange juice - it was definitely tangy!

Tomorrow we have a free day, and rather than go back to the boat, we are going to drive up to Bury early to see Tim, Dana and the grandsons for the day. Yay!!!

By the way, this was the penultimate hand in our 5 Crowns game where I won and raised the game score to 6 - 0. I went out after my second turn ...