I need to say a quick thank you to modern medicine here. I was born very short sighted and had trouble with my vision until I was diagnosed at age 11. Until then i didn’t realise that everyone else could see details around them like the leaves on trees. I wore contact lenses from the age of 13 to 27, when my eyes started to reject them. The last two years of wearing contacts irritated my eyes, getting progressively worse, to the stage where I knew I couldn’t wear them any more.

Thankfully, I was a prime candidate for laser eye surgery. It was a quick, very uncomfortable procedure that I had done at the end of 2007, and for the first time in my life I had perfect eye sight without any aids. It was magical. No more itchy, uncomfortable eyes, being able to open my eyes open water, little things that most people take for granted.

Thank you skillful doctors for fixing my eyesight!

I feel lucky that I’m healthy. It’s something I don’t think about it a lot, I whinge instead about genetic fails like my short-sightedness or my elastic ankle tendons, but I am actually incredibly lucky that I can see (thanks to laser eye surgery) and hear (well, most things!), have all four limbs working and no problems preventing me from doing anything I want to do. I should remember this more often when I’m having a fat day.

My friends – I’m lucky that I have made some amazing friends over the years and I have friends who have been in my life since I was five.

My dogs bring me tremendous joy and give me unconditional love.

I’ve decided to post, once a week, something I am grateful for. I borrowed the idea from a Flickr group and decided to make it a regular blog post instead.