040609

Had a pleasant walk along the river after a good night's sleep. Yesterday on my way back to Lysander, as for the last few days, I passed by a duck 'couple' in exactly the same spot on the path. They seemed understandably wary each time I passed (the path is narrow here) but only the first time did they launch themselves from the bank into the water. Walking along this path is like walking through a series of back gardens / yards and allotments. Sometimes people have their 'back door' open and the sound of living drifts out across the path.

So I've had the operation (an hour late) and my 'wart' has been replaced by scarlet scab the size of a five pence piece. The consultant 'shaved off' the offending protruberance and said it will leave a scar. 'It may grow back again', she added. She almost seemed to be trying to put me off getting it done. 'It's probably a viral wart with a sub-hemo-globin supeona underneath it', she said. Or something like that. Just a lot of medical lingo that just went over my head as I was all too conscious of the young medical student smiling beatifically at me across the room from a chair in the corner. She came from up north somewhere and we exchanged a few words about how Homerton was a real community-based hospital and me walking in to the hospital from a canal boat around the corner on the River Lee/Lea. All this was while unseen activity was swirling around my now prone body. Somebody said something about 'silver nitrate'? (Or something like that). I thought blimey I've come in to get this 'wart' off my cheek not to get plated. No, of course I didn't. But it was all very disorientating being encompassed by all this bustle of unseen incarnate efficiency.

She said it would look like a cigarette burn for a week or too - as if I knew what that looked like.

So back to the boat along the tow-path in the sunshine and a late (a half 3) breakfast at the riverside cafe where a young black labradoodle was playing among the tables and its posh owner was explaining its genetic mix to a less doggy-knowledgeable person sitting at another table nearby.

After pausing on the footbridge to watch our upstream neighbour pass beneath I made my way back to Lysander and caught sight of the Cruising Club bar-tender reading on the back of her boat. Got back, put a pair of shorts on and a polo shirt and looked in the mirror.

Blimey - it's big. The bloody result of my 'shave'. Bigger than I thought it would be and there is a reddened line about a centimetre long - presumably where the needle went in for the local anaesthetic. Oh well. Job done.

Now to get my teeth fixed. A rower splashes passed, the boat rocks and gurgles at its mooring.