FOR years, I thought cataracts were rocky outcrops in white water rafting on the Zambezi.

Then I began to have trouble with my sight and an optician told me I had them developing in one eye.

By heck, I thought, and I’ve never even been to Zambia.

That was four years ago. I returned to Specsavers for an eye test the other week and the optician said the cataracts were getting worse. Not only that, I was developing them in the other eye.

For a moment I had visions of blindness. It was not a happy moment.

Age affects everything, including eyesight. I made the mistake of crawling into granddaughter Jeannie’s plastic playhouse the other day and found I couldn’t get out. My limbs no longer worked like they used to. Would I have to have it surgically removed? Fed my meals whilst encased in red plastic walls?

I eventually escaped. But what about my eyesight?

Cataracts are usually age related. Gareth, my optician at Specsavers, was excellent, informative and reassuring. After the initial diagnosis, he gave me a more thorough optical examination and set in motion the procedure that will lead to operations at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. These were routine, he assured me.

I must admit I have taken sight for granted all my life. When I first needed spectacles at about the age of 50, I thought a pair of glasses might make me look more intelligent. Well, we can all live in hope. They certainly aided my vision and my arms stopped hurting. I hadn’t noticed until then, but I’d been holding a newspaper as far away as possible in order to read it until my reach had stopped being long enough.

Glasses were definitely an improvement.

Four years ago, when I was told about the first signs of cataracts, I was asked if I wanted an operation but shied away from it. An operation? In my eye? That meant I’d be watching it at close quarters. I was far too squeamish.

I should have returned for an annual inspection but never quite got round to it. I only went this time because I needed new glasses. And I’m glad I did.

We take eyesight for granted and I admire people who have got on with life while blind from birth. What seems worse are those who had sight and then lost it. I’m not sure I could manage that.

Which is why it’s just as well that cataracts, that can ruin lives in the third world, are extremely treatable here, and I’m now on the National Health waiting list.

I still don’t like the idea of an operation but the alternative puts everything into perspective. If you see what I mean.