We are closing over the festive period. If you have anything to collect, we will be here until 2pm on Saturday 23rd - no appointment needed. You can book your eye exam online while we are closed and we look forward to seeing you in 2024.

At the end of September we made our annual Eurostar trip to Paris, for the biggest optical trade show in the world. It was boiling hot, we had some lovely food and purchased a lot of stinky cheese.

We also found some lovely new family-run independent frame suppliers. Folc frames designed by Marta in Barcelona and made in Italy are proving popular. They are beautifully sculpted with a great range of muted colours - Claire and Sharon chose ones for themselves, while Nonye fancies an off-white from our Italian friends Ross & Brown.

Instagram is the place where we show off our new stock (whereas Twitter/X is where we sound off), but coming in to try frames on is the best approach - no appointment needed.

If you are due an eye test, then please book a slot online - we are still allowing an hour between appointments, so we can take our time, look at the pictures and you can understand all about your eye health, vision and options to help you be comfortable in work, rest and play. People also love the coffee we bring to you in the consulting room, it’s from John St Kitchen next door.

Remember we are still giving out our free lens spray / bottle for life - you can only have one if you promise not to throw it away. It’s free and we will keep topping it up for you, again for free.

People popping in on Saturday may have met Heba - she has applied to do optometry at university and we are pleased her work experience turned into a regular weekend and holiday post.

Thanks for all your support and we hope you have a restful festive season and that 2024 goes well for you,

Karl, Claire, Sharonjit, Nonye & Heba

We get our frames from suppliers who we trust and like - many of our suppliers are family businesses and we have met them all in real life - usually on our annual trip to Paris for the global trade fair called Silmo.

Everything we stock has been hand picked by us, whether it’s our lowest or highest cost frame - we don’t sell any that are not well made or any with silly designer labels on the side.

Soon we are getting some from Spain - a company called Folc, with designer Marta and husband Paul running things. We have a long standing relationship with Dutch couple Hans and Nicole in the Netherlands, who run Heyelander and Franck in The Jura, France who runs the company his father started. it’s great having relationships with people all over Europe, even though the paperwork and costs of dealing with them is annoying since Brexit.

Can you test your own eyes if you are an optometrist? Well, you can do elements, but perhaps not the most important bits, like check the health of the eye. In fact checking the health of the eye and determining the correct spectacle prescriptions are the absolute minimum requirements of an eye test.

We are currently in the process of recruiting another optometrist to work with Sharonjit and Karl (owner of Eyeye - and blog writer, social media person) and it’s a real (ahem) eye opener hearing what conditions optoms work in elsewhere. Opticians are put under both enormous time and KPI delivery pressure. The KPIs that they get hammered on are: 1) Conversion - how many people who are tested buy specs; 2) AOV - average order value of the those converted; 3) Number of tests done. For many places a good optom is one who tests fast and flogs specs and doesn’t make a fuss. It’s an awful job and let’s not pretend there are not issues with the eyecare offered in theses environments.

It’s a pity that optoms spend 4+ yrs getting qualified and when they do qualify the main message they get is they need to strip their eye test down and get faster. It’s so much better for patient and practitioner if time is taken to listen, understand and explain … answer questions etc. It’s more enjoyable for everyone!