Warts and all

I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. Archbishop Rowan celebrated again this week. There were just six of us for the service. We chatted in the church hall afterwards and a few people popped in to say hello, including an Italian lady of a certain age who lives locally and was out on a photo shoot with a big Nikon camera around her neck. When she spoke, the sound of her English accent immediately think of our dear departed Sicilian friend Angela, but she was from Puglia, which is about as near as you can get to Sicily anyway, across the Straights of Messina.

When we were finished, I went and collected this week's veggie bag and headed home for chick pea curry, cooked by Clare while I was out. Then as snooze in the chair before visiting a clinic in Cathedral Road to enquire about getting a facial wart surgically removed. The GP surgery doctors will find out if it's malign or not, but don't do the minor surgery entailed in removal and longer. I want to be rid of it as it makes shaving difficult even with my brand new electric razor. 

It seems that a certain virus causes warts to grow where there's a shaving cut. In the past I've not been able to get a satisfactory shave with an electric razor and need to finish the job with a dry bladed razor, rather than a wet shave, as it's too much hassle, and I don't use aftershave, whose antiseptic qualities would kill off any potential infection, as I don't like their scent. So it serves me right for being less than rigorous. The cosmetic surgeon has now been sent a photo of the wart to be removed, and I await a quotation for the job from him. 

Having started the process, I went for a circuit of Pontcanna Fields. I counted three, possibly four pairs of Goosanders on the Taff in a half mile stretch, something I've never more than one pair and their chicks in previous years. Are the additional pairs grown up surviving chicks of the same family, or birds from elsewhere finding suitable habitat and food in our stretch of river? I have no way of knowing at the moment, but it's the kind of thing I notice after spending so much time around the year walking the river bank and taking pictures.

In the evening I watched the last of the new 'Crimson Rivers' episode, a bizarre storyline confusingly rendered. Then, searching for something else to watch I discovered a Swiss made crimmie called 'Sacha' about a killing related to case of coercive control. It's set in Geneva, and the dialogue is in the French accent of la Romandie, which is what we became attuned to over eight years living and working in the city. It's lovely clear French with its own turns of phrase, and enjoyable for this reason quite apart from an interesting and sophisticated plot. I shall savour this!