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Tesco Opticians
by stickyangel
I've avoided going to the opticians for a lot of years after more than one horrible experience at Specsavers, but I decided this year that it was finally time to go back to the opticians and get a proper prescription (I'd been buying contact lense online for years and just changing the prescription myself when I felt my vision getting a ... bit blurry. Yes I know how bad that is!). I decided on Tesco Opticians because they offer free sight tests and I don't know of any other opticians that do this other than as a special offer sometimes.
I booked my sight test online, which was very easy to do. After inputting my details I had to input the store I wanted to have my sight test at and then choose a time to have the test. To be honest I was a little disappointed that there were no appointments available when I wanted, and I ended up having to take time out of work to have my test, which is not ideal, but hey ho such is life. After I'd chosen my appointment time and booked online I received confirmation by both email and text message. I also received a reminder via text message the day before my appointment.
They advise you to get to your appointment 5-10 minutes early for pre-test checks, so I got to the store about 20 minutes early and wandered around until 10 minutes before my appointment. When I went to the opticians there didn't seem to be any staff around so I hovered around the appointment desk for a while and after about 5 minutes someone appeared from one of the rooms in the back. She was very friendly and welcoming and after checking my details she took me into the room she'd come from for the pre-test checks, which included testing the strength of my current glasses and using a couple of machines to test different aspects of my eyes. The actual checks only took about 2 minutes in total, but she spent ages logging on to 2 different computers before she could start each check. After the checks were complete she took me out to the waiting area and asked me to have a seat until the optician came to get me.
I was only waiting about a minute before the optician called me into her examination room. She too was very friendly and welcoming, and I felt at ease with her, which is something I'd never felt in Specsavers. Before beginning the eye test the optician asked me about my current prescription, how long it was since I'd had an eye test etc, and to be honest I'd been expecting a lecture when I said it was about 10 years since my last test and the prescription I was wearing was a good few years old, but she was lovely and never spoke down to me at all.
The optician talked me through everything as she was performing the test, and was always keen to make sure I was comfortable, which again is completely different to my experiences of Specsavers. After the eye test she took the time to talk me through the process for getting contact lenses from them but as I already wear lenses (even though I've never had them officially prescribed) she gave me an 'unofficial' prescription for my lenses for if I wanted to continue to buy them online. She also gave me a pair of lenses in the prescription she'd given me to try out for the day, which I thought was great.
After the test she took me back out to the appointments desk where she gave me a copy of my prescription and then left me to pick out some glasses, saying just to give any of the staff a shout if I needed anything. Although the opticians area was quite small they stock quite a good range of frames, from basic, cheaper styles to expensive designer options. I decided to take advantage of their BOGOF offer on frames over £65, and it didn't take me long to choose 2 pairs of designer frames. Once I'd chosen my frames I just took them to another staff member who was sat at a desk trying to look busy and she quickly sorted them out for me, measuring my pupillary distance to be sure the glasses would be right for me. She did advise me I might want to choose a different frame as one of the ones I'd chosen may not look so great with the thickness of lenses for my strong prescription (after suggesting I pay 'up to £90' to have the lenses thinned), but I chose against it as I only ever wear my glasses at home anyway so I'm not really that fussed on how they look. She then took me back to the appointments desk to pay and advised me that my glasses should be ready to collect in 6 days, but I'd receive a phone call as soon as they got them in anyway.
I received a phone call 4 days later to say my glasses were ready, which surprised me as the lady who dealt with my purchase had said a prescription as strong as mine often takes longer than the quoted time frame. I also received a text message the next day to say they were ready.
When I went to pick up my glasses there were a couple of staff members stood by the appointments desk so I just told them I needed to pick up my glasses and one of them ushered me to a desk where she asked my name and then shouted out some numbers to the other, who went and picked up my 2 pairs of glasses from their pigeon holes. She then in turn took each pair of glasses from it's cased and asked me to try them on, asking me specifics like how they fit behind the ears and on the bridge of the nose, and how my vision was. She seemed keen to make sure they were right fro me first time so that I didn't have to come back and get them adjusted, but she did say that I could pop in any time to have them adjusted if after wearing them for a while I felt the fit wasn't quite right. And that was it, I left with 2 lovely new pairs of glasses.
Overall I couldn't be more impressed with the service I received at Tesco Opticians. Everything was in such stark contrast to my experiences at Specsavers; the staff are friendly and helpful and I felt completely at ease throughout the whole process. They offer a good range of frames and of course the free eye exam and 2 for 1 deals make it well worth choosing them over others, as well as the fact that you can earn club card points on your purchases. The few minor niggles like no-one being around when I first turned up can easily be forgiven when they give such an all round great service, and I think I'm going to finally book myself in for a contact lens consultation after years of avoiding it. I'd definitely recommend Tesco Opticians to anyone.
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Bassetts On The Go Vitamins
by Whizz11
I can't quite remember now what magazine a sample packet of these came with or really why they did offer a free pack of vitamins but I first tried these as a free sample and the marketing obviously worked because over winter these have definitely been my daily vitamin of choice.
I have always taken vitamins, my mum gave them ... to us as children and then when I was pregnant both times I made sure to take my folic acid, women vitamin and breastfeeding vitamins religiously so I was always going to be the type of person to take a daily vitamin.
These vitamins are a bit different than a tablet that you swallow as they come in a chewy pastille form. I find this quite an easy way to take a vitamin as its almost quite fun to chew one instead of having to swallow a tablet. The pastilles are quite hard but you can chew them. They sort of look a bit like a fruit gum but are in the shape of a curved fruit too so they definitely remind me of that, they type that don't have sugar on the outside obviously.
The vitamins contain vitamin C, B6, Folic acid and Zinc and these vitamins help to support your immune system. I thought these would be a really good vitamin to have over winter as I usually seem to get a cold or two and having support for my immune system would be a really good idea.
The flavour is an interesting one. The vitamins are raspberry and pomegranate flavour and so the pastilles are a deep reddish colour. I love things flavoured with pomegranate and you can definitely taste this in these, they have a sort of fruity twang to them, not quite a sweet taste but them are definitely quite nice and one you wouldn't mind eating as a sweet. The vitamins contain sweeteners and also sulphites but are sugar free so they are a good way of taking your vitamins without taking in more sugars.
A pack of 15 costs £2.20 so obviously if you want to buy enough for the month then two packs will cost £4.40 which in my opinion is not that costly for a months worth of vitamins. I seemed to be quite healthy over winter and really only got a cold last week so I think they have worked well so I will continue to use them daily to keep me on top of my game.
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