Eyes Hoods and Poems

The optometrist has a new machine for testing for glaucoma. Instead of putting drops in my eyes he fired puffs of air into them and read the pressure on the dial of the "gun". Just as uncomfortable at the time but the discomfort doesn't last as long. Back when I was a child (when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we walked to school backwards through the snow in bare feet) an eye test meant an eye chart and not much else. Isn't technology wonderful?
After the eye test I went in to the Cathedral to see the rest of the quilts. Then I wandered down to the Arts Centre to talk to Sue, the quiltmaker. In the quad there were groups of young people standing around in gowns and hoods waiting for their graduation photos. The Arts Centre is in the old university buildings - gothic revival with a huge ginkgo tree in the quad in its autumn splendour. No fur on any of the hoods. I guess they dropped that tradition. As I understand it, in the early days at Oxford and Cambridge (around the 1500s or so), the dining halls were very cold and the bachelors students sat furthest from the fire, further than the masters and doctoral students. So bachelors had fur on their hoods to keep them warm while masters had no fur.
The poetry chooks are having their monthly meeting tonight. It creeps up on me and I realise all my poems are in rough draft form and not ready for the meeting. So I sat down at the computer and typed for ten minutes, then printed out and headed for my favourite editing spot - the spa pool. Now I am toasty warm all through.