One of the file boxes stashed in my study contains about two dozen pairs of spectacles that Edmund and I accumulated over more than thirty years. The range of styles and types includes his ‘n’ hers respirator glasses, made to fit inside the Cold War-era gas mask issued to the Canadian Forces, Edmund’s “ballistic eyewear” from the Afghanistan period, and a pair of owlish sunglasses in a military-issue frame so sturdy that I wore them from 1975 to about 2010. Come to think of it, with new nose pads and plastic ear-pieces, I could wear them now. They are the very definition of fashion-proof, as well as bomb-proof.

I wonder if I could get new lenses for my respirator glasses? They’re held on with loops that fit around the ears, so they’re great for swimming.

Jon Freeman, you’re right about finding a charity to give your unneeded supply of dressings to. I assume they’re sterile? If so, they won’t stay that way indefinitely, so they should go to someone who will use them before they’re out of date and assumed to be contaminated.

As for the bathroom, your mum is right. A generously sized shower stall, with grab-bars, a seat, and a hand-holdable shower head, is much better than a cramped bath-tub on general principles, but especially for people with mobility problems. The locker room at the Y where I go to swim has one shower stall fitted that way, and every time I look at it I remember risking my neck to get into and out of the bath with first one leg, then the other, in plaster.