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A sunny start to the day but by the time I walked to St Catherine's for the Eucharist, it was overcast and began to rain steadily until after sunset. There were eight of us for the service and some old friends of Hilary and Clive turned up in the hall afterwards with their daughter and grand daughter. It turned out that Paul had taught the daughter in Llandaff Primary school twenty five years ago, so there was a surprising little reunion over coffee. I got soaked afterwards walking in the rain to collect this week's veggie bag, but was cheered when I got in to find Clare cooking fresh sardines for lunch. That's something I look forward to eating fresh from the sea when I'm in Fuengirola.

I received a WhatsApp message from eye surgeon Andrew on mission in Malawi with a photo of him and his surgical team visiting Manchinga District Hospital for a 'cataract camp, an hour and a half's journey from his working base in Malawi. Taking precision surgery to a remote area when people are reluctant or unable to travel to a urban medical centre is a remarkable challenge to achieve. I was certainly privileged to have him take my cataract away.

After lunch I worked on next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection and later went out for a walk as the sun was setting and the rain abating. Then there was a special task to do.

Since his first attempt to buy a place of his own foundered, Owain has made progress recently on the purchase of a two bedroom flat in Easton. His offer has been accepted by the vendor for his half share in a co-ownership housing association deal. We promised to help him by funding the deposit. The building society providing the mortgage demands certification of the funding promised, and this in turn requires an on-line identity check to match the bank statement and passport photocopy. 

It was quite a rigorous process run by an organisation called 'Credas', and not exactly user friendly, involving face recognition, comparing one's passport photo with a two photos taken live within minutes of each other, one in passport mode and the other with a hand on top of the head to prove the subject is alive! Not impossible to fake, but quite an effort to be convincing. I found this harder than DVB safeguarding or gov.uk i/d registration checks, but it's done now and hopefully this will facilitate the next steps Owain will have to make to complete the deal. 

After supper I carried on watching several episodes of Alec Guinness' masterly 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' on iPlayer, but I'm keeping the final episode until tomorrow night!