Less bad than expected

Thursday, my ankle was sore; yesterday, I was having real trouble walking, so I made an appointment with my doctor. He diagnosed it as tendinitis and prescribed an anti-inflammatory for 1 to 2 weeks, which is working very well; I expect I'll be back at aikido on Monday, although I'll try not to be too hard on it. This is much better than I expected, which was to be off it for a couple of weeks!

Local celebrity

We have a European Goldfinch visiting our balcony birdfeeders. The default assumption is that he's an escape from domestic captivity, because its natural range isn't exactly close to here, but it's acting wild, hanging out with a mixed flock of Common (American) Goldfinches, Redpolls, and House Finches, and it arrived with an Arctic air mass. We're hoping that experts can establish its subspecies from pictures, because if it's from a Northern one (rather than, say, the subspecies particular to Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia), it might be judged a genuine wild bird way out of its range.

If so, the trickle of interest we've had for visiting our viewing area may get rather more substantial!