Friday 22nd July 1811

Dear Diary,
My right eye has been most uncomfortable these last few days. When I awoke this morning it was again prickling and I resolved to do something about it.
Willow had already risen and gone to the school room before I stirred. The poor fellow is exhausted but happily it is the final day of this summer term and freedom beckons.
Harden Thicke was already wielding his chopper outside in an attempt to remove a particularly stubborn tree stump. I slipped on my dressing gown and ventured out to see him.
"Would you mind taking a look in my right eye, Harden?" I asked. "I feel a great irritation therein and it is such a dreadful vexation."
He rubbed his calloused hands upon his breeches and lifted the upper lid upon my right eye and gazed into it.
"Can't see owt," he said, "but it is a little red."
I sighed and thanked him for his efforts and decided to call upon Llewelyn Dowd.
I walked to the doctor's house through the woods and met Ned driving some sheep down the lane.
"How was 'er ladyship's visit," he asked.
"Oh Ned, my nerves were in tatters. She almost sat upon Harden's Dick and I had to distract her with my 'Norma Stitts'. Thankfully her visit was short lived due to the inclement weather and she departed, happily, taking the small rodent, that has plagued me these last few days, away upon her new three shilling bonnet."
It was all too much for Ned to take in and I knew I had lost him at 'inclement weather'.
"Are you winking at me again, Mr Austen?" He asked.
"No Ned! I have some irritation in my eye and I am to Llewelyn Dowd this instant. I think you best be off after those sheep." 
They had wandered on down the lane and I left him to hurry after them.
Sometime later Doctor Dowd peered into my eye with a large magnifying glass. How strange he looked with one eye enlarged.
"Ah yes, I see," he murmured. "Yes, you have some kind of splinter in your cornea. I'll just remove it. Hold still a moment."
"You are going to remove my cornea?!" I gasped.
"No, Wayne, just the splinter. Hold still!"
He scratched at my eye with a small blunt implement and then rinsed my eye with water.
"Here is the offending item." He lifted it from my lower lid with a handkerchief and held it for me to see.
It was a small brown speck.
"This was embedded in your cornea Wayne!"
I shivered.
How perilous is the world we live in!