Cat - Life :)

Grey and metallic

November 3, 2026 by 0 Comments

I did all the stuff on my list, then got myself a haircut which at least gave me someone to talk to, even if it was just to say that I’d got my thick hair from my mother’s side of the family. But other than that I’m depressed, alone, and all over the place. Life has this grey, metallic feel to it. Though I suppose this morning when I visited the pet shop off by the side of the market, then the bakery, then the market itself to buy some pears, I thought I will miss this slice of Romania if and when I leave. Even the hairdresser’s was definitely real Romania. (I get sophisticated young male students who tell me they went to the hairstylist rather than the barber or hairdresser. That isn’t a term I have in my vocabulary.)

My uni mate hadn’t set his alarm so our video catch-up didn’t happen, but I should manage to fit that in tomorrow among my lessons. Oh, and I’m probably going to need to call a plumber (pipe stylist?) and an electrician and get my laptop fixed because the left button on the touchpad is sticking. Already. I only got this laptop in July.

A couple of things I now remember from last week. On Wednesday I had lunch at a newly-owned simple restaurant almost next door to her. Soup (pumpkin and something else), pork, potatoes and other vegetables. Proper, tasty food, and for only 30 lei. I’ll want to go back there. Then on Friday as I was leaving the vet, my watch came off my wrist as I put Kitty’s backpack on. The spring bar came out and it was nowhere to be seen. Three or four hours later, the vet called me to say that she’d found the spring bar (which is called a telescop in Romanian), so I went back to pick it up.

Kitty has been lovely of late. More affectionate than she’s ever been. Even too affectionate at times. When I first got her I never imagined I’d get to that point.

I’ve been thinking about those books I (and Dad) have written (and drawn). What will I ever do with them? Lack of contacts has been the real problem, and now everything is being superseded by AI. I’ve still got that book about my tennis partner to finish as well.

Today I saw the footage of the Learjet that dived near-vertically into the ground at Palm Beach in Florida, killing all nine on board. Even worse was the voice recorder. The sheer terror in the voice of the pilot as the plane plunged hundreds of feet per second.

I found out today that there’s a place called Zilwaukee (yes, with a zee) near Saginaw, Michigan. When there’s a big election in America I tend to focus my thoughts a bit on the country, even if I’d prefer not to in its current state. The midterms are tomorrow.

Books - Family - Life :)

Harrowing

November 2, 2026 by 0 Comments

One of my very many regular readers recently used the word harrowing to describe some of my posts. Well, by yesterday evening it all felt utterly excruciating. And beyond hope. Things had gone downhill rapidly from Friday.

I’ve got little energy, either mental or physical. Lessons are something I can just about cope with, but only because I’ve done so many of them now and I’ve got lots of old material to call on if need be. But as for scheduling lessons, chasing up people, actively acquiring new students, or keeping track of my non-cash payments – forget it. And everything else is a complete mess, literally and figuratively. Even something as simple as making the bed has become an effort.

Last night, when I felt on the verge of a meltdown, I saw Elena, the old lady who lives above me. I brought Kitty with me and was there for 45 minutes. She talked about the train crash in Spain that killed 69 people. I asked her if she’d like to go on a trip to Novi Sad (over the border in Serbia) next Sunday; she said she’d think about it. She had made noises in that general direction. I was pretty close going to Vrsac by myself today myself – it’s a bit closer – in an attempt to dust off a few of the copious cobwebs, but decided I was in no fit state. Instead I finished Dorothy’s Jeffrey Archer book First Among Equals. Extremely well written, and it gave me a history lesson and a greater appreciation for the workings of parliament in the UK, but in the end I didn’t care which of the four protagonists would make it to the top. That says more about me than the late author, I suppose. One thing I really did like were the illustrations; more than 40 years after the book was published, that’s quite literally a lost art, sadly.

This afternoon I decided I should at least get out of the flat for a bit. I walked down to the river, and found myself shoulder-charging a tree. I spent some time looking at the small fish from the footbridge. On the way back, staggering along the main road, I kept saying out loud, this is all too much, this is all too much, while pressing the palm of my hand repeatedly against my forehead.

On Friday Mum went to Ashburton with her brother to see their mother’s cousin on her 109th birthday. She’s New Zealand’s third-oldest living person but only the second-oldest in Ashburton; there is a lady three months older in a different home. The oldest living New Zealander is 113.

The midterms will be an interesting watch. I truly hope the Republicans take a beating. I wonder how they will play out – a drip-feed like in 2020 (Maricopa County? Washoe County?) or even 2018, or basically a one-and-done? Then you’ve got to wonder how Trump might react.

Tomorrow I don’t have any lessons in the morning. I’ve got a video call with my uni friend at eleven (it’s his birthday today). Before that I hope to clean out the living room, visit the pet shop and do some lesson admin. I hope I can manage all that.

Cat - Life :) - Other sports - Photos - Politics - Romania - Scrabble

Poolless

October 30, 2026 by 0 Comments

So I went to the pool this morning for my final swim before it closed, and I could see that tubs of chlorine and soap were being loaded into a van. I went through the automatic doors as usual, but the QR reader wasn’t doing anything. We’re closed. Already? Yes, we closed at ten. I looked at my watch. Quarter to nine. But he must have meant ten o’clock last night. On Tuesday I asked the lady at reception when the last day would be, and she said Friday (today), but after ten years none of this surprises me. No signs with, I dunno, words like apologise or inconvenience. Basically no nothing. This is is how Romania operates. I got in three swims this week anyway, but now I have to think where to go next, if there is a next.

I’m feeling considerably better than I did last weekend when I couldn’t sleep and everything was overwhelming. Getting that bank stuff sorted was something; now both my accounts are back in business. My work week hasn’t been bad. It’s mostly been dominated by kids, who this week have had a short break between terms, if that’s what I should call them. A few years ago they rejigged the school year so that it’s in five chunks, and this is the gap between chunks one and two. I asked a nine-year-old girl if it’s been nice to have a break and she said no, her mum has given her so much to learn over the “break” that she’d have preferred to be at school. I could totally believe that. I’ve had two sessions this week with the girl (also nine) who isn’t really literate. Last night I went back to the absolute basics. The fat cat sat on the mat. I’ll see her again tomorrow. I also had my first session with another girl, this time just eight. What’s more, it was online. There’s no way this will work. But it did, because her English was staggeringly good. Teaching is still pretty satisfying, even if my hours this year will be end up being way down on previous years. Everything else though is a bit of a mess.

Last week I read something about the snooker player Mark Allen. He recently had ten weeks of treatment at a mental health facility and appeared in a TV interview. He was the guy who missed the easy black (easy for someone like him, I mean) that would have put him in the world final back in May. Someone commented to the effect of “It’s no wonder people are struggling. We’re living in a world we weren’t designed for.” Too true. And increasingly so. I look at my parents. Dad said he isn’t sleeping because of all the worry over the place in St Ives and more. Mum looked about 95 when I saw her on Monday. They should not be dealing with this at their age. And I’m really not managing either. I’m having to navigate the modern world almost entirely alone, which makes it even harder. I have fewer contacts here than I did five years ago. Mark has gone, sadly. Tennis has also gone. The tennis people decided to sever contact with me for some reason I never knew. One lady whom I’d always got on well with switched from the informal pronoun to formal in her messages – a highly unusual move – then stopped contacting me altogether.

I couldn’t make head or tail of the Israeli election results. In just four days America goes to the polls. These midterms feel enormous, even bigger than presidential elections used to be. (Well, 2000 was extremely consequential. We just didn’t know it at the time.) I find it absolutely ridiculous that Americans’ biggest concern (and the one thing that might pull them away from the abhorrent MAGA cult) is this that gas prices are $4.30 per gallon. Now of course gas prices affect the cost of living in a number of other indirect ways, and in some states like California where they have extra state taxes they’re paying over $6. But here in Romania, in a far poorer country, it works out to be right around the $8 mark.

Scrabble. I recovered from a bad start to finish the latest round of the league with (once again) seven wins and seven losses. I thought I was doomed to relegation, but have survived and wasn’t far off a promotion as things turned out.

I have to take Kitty to the vet very soon. Over the last week I’ve kept a food diary for her. It isn’t very full.
Update: She vomited on the way there, just like last week. Her weight hadn’t changed. The vet said she’s eating enough, but I should buy better quality food – I was given a list of options. If that doesn’t get her to put on the pounds (or grams), she’ll have some blood tests done.

I’m still planning on going to Serbia on Sunday.

That ram from a couple of weeks ago, after it had finally moved

An autumnal wedding in Buziaș

Four kitties outside a still unrenovated building near where I once spent a lot of my time

At the mall last Sunday there was an exhibition of photos of typical Romanian scenes, mostly with elderly people. I thought they were quite wonderful; they encapsulated what I love about Romania and what I’d be sad to leave behind if I go. Here are them all:

Family - Life :) - Politics

Dealing with scary Romanian bureaucracy

October 27, 2026 by 0 Comments

My parents called me early this morning. I couldn’t talk for more than a minute because I wanted to be at ANAF when it opened at 8:30. I’d slept badly. The first time (of many) I woke up, there was half the night left. The next time there was half of that left, and so on, until I was down to just minutes. I was frightened of what might await me. This morning it was bucketing down, so I had to choose either to drive, which would have meant finding somewhere to park in the middle of town and dealing with parking apps and who knows what else, or taking the bike and getting wet. I choose the latter. Getting soaked wouldn’t break my brain.

ANAF’s Google star rating is in the sewer. When you get there you can see why. But the people I dealt with were mostly pretty helpful on this occasion. It was less busy than usual; perhaps the bad weather had kept people away. I’d assumed I had to pay an income tax bill, but it was in fact a charge for public healthcare – they’d supposedly billed me in May, but I can’t remember getting anything from them then. To my relief it wasn’t double that figure of 2257 lei. I then visited the bank, agreed to pay, and they unblocked my account in short order. I then went back to ANAF to pay interest that had accrued since May. With various bank charges as well, I ended up coughing up 2416 lei in total. But at least I got it sorted. My Revolut account is still blocked though.

When I got back home I called Mum and Dad back. They’d been in Moeraki for four days. Mum looked shattered. They’d done work on the place down there – Dad mentioned the roof – in preparation for (at some point soon) putting it on the market. A shame – it’s a lovely spot and it’s done wonders for relieving Mum’s stress – but they’ve now realised that all these properties have become a huge burden. I am worried about Mum; it all seems to be taking a physical toll on her. We talked about how complicated life has become. None of us are really coping.

A bit later I took my bike to the shop to get a new front brake fitted as well as a new mudguard. I’d been meaning to get the brake done for a while, but it took this morning in the rain (it was actually rather dangerous) to do it. That meant a long walk back, partly through my old stomping ground when everything was still exciting. And different. And cheap.

Last night I spoke to my brother, but not for long. He was two hours into a five-hour power cut and didn’t want to drain his phone battery. A storm named Boelo (pronounced boo-lo) battered large parts of the UK and claimed two lives.

There were two big elections overnight. One was very close to home in Serbia (which I’m even thinking of visiting this coming weekend) and guess what, Aleksandar Vučić (pro-Putin, pro-Trump, and basically a dictator) was defeated by a student movement of all things, and pretty decisively too, despite violence and intimidation. That’s great news. The worry is that the student group is currently leaderless; I just hope it holds. The student coalition isn’t actually made up of students, but instead some very clever young people, most of whom have PhDs. It came about following the railway station collapse in Novi Sad two years ago. I visited that city shortly after. Then Lula beat Bolsonaro Junior in Brazil in a bit of a shock. Bolsonaro is pro-Trump and anti-environment, so that’s got to be good news too. A win for the Amazon. The Israeli election is tomorrow, then the US midterms next week. And then New Zealand have theirs on 7th November.

Five sessions tomorrow including with a new kid. I hope to fit in a swim as well.

Cat - Life :) - Politics - Scrabble

The latest nosedive

October 25, 2026 by 0 Comments

I was managing, just about, until I wasn’t. My flat had become a mess yet again. My office was, is, barely passable, but everything else now feels like a disaster zone. And how could one person ever have so much washing?

On Thursday I went swimming. I forced myself to do it. Everything was getting that little bit harder. It even took ages to locate the app on my phone which brings up the QR code that I need to scan to enter. Just where is it? And then which button is it? Brain fog, as I’ve had so many times before. On the way back from the pool it tipped it down and I got soaked to the skin on my bike. In some ways that felt good, because it was something physical – and immediate – to have to contend with, rather than everything going on in my head. That evening I went to the after-hours doctor to get my latest batch of pills. I decided to drive there, which was a mistake. For the last two and half years they’ve been located in the mall, or rather one of the vast edifices surrounding the mall, which means coping with a multi-storey car park if you drive there. How do I even get out of the car park to get to the doctor’s surgery? This lift will take me to somewhere else. It’s all far from obvious, especially when I’m like this. I couldn’t even see the doctor because a patient was rushed off to hospital in an ambulance. (Edit: I’ve just realised I wrote something nonsensical there and have corrected it. Brain fog again.) I’ll have to go back there later today, but I’ll take the bike this time.

On Friday morning, after my first lesson, I took Kitty to the vet. She’d lost weight again. She doesn’t eat meals as such; she’s developed a habit of scooping out dry food from the bowl with her paw, half of which ends up on the floor. The vet was concerned, as am I; she asked me to make a food diary and to come back next Friday. They might give her some blood tests. I suppose these are like what I had – I really don’t know how these work for cats.

Later on Friday I went swimming again. They have wristbands which you use to lock and unlock the lockers. You have to remember which locker you used. Brain fog can make that a challenge. When I got back to the changing room after my swim, I couldn’t remember at all which locker I’d put my stuff in. Then it dawned on me. Shit, I’d just left my bag on the bench, with my wallet, phone and keys inside. Thankfully everything was still there, but bloody hell. I coped with lessons that day, but just as I got out of that mental-health-disaster block in Dumbrăvița after the lesson with the boy on the eighth floor, I saw I’d got a text message from the bank. I’d had a propire. This was a new word for me. It meant that my account had been blocked, not by the bank itself, but by ANAF, the tax people. It seems I owe 2257 lei (£350 or NZ$830) that I haven’t paid. I’m happy to pay it, but how do I pay it (or any other bills) now that my account has been blocked? My Revolut account has been blocked too; when I went in there it came up with a red warning triangle and that same amount – 2257 lei. Will I have to pay twice? I literally have no idea how this works. I actually do have around 3000 lei in cash plus a small amount in foreign currency if need be, which is just as well. Last year I got debanked while I was in Poland. I’ll go to the ANAF office – a nightmarish place to navigate at the best of times – first thing tomorrow morning and ask what to do.

Yesterday I only had two lessons in Dumbrăvița. One was with that girl from Thailand. I went through her maths homework, much of which was impossible for her because she couldn’t read and understand the questions. I told her mother that she needs to speak to the teacher because this homework is doing her more harm than good. Outside their house is a weird dull yellow six-inch-high metal pole, or pipe, that I’ve always been careful to avoid driving over. It’s right in my natural path and its colour blends in with the grass. But yesterday I drove over it, completely forgetting it was there. Jeez, what was that? Oh yes. When I got to the park, where I had my lunch, I took a look at the car. It was fine. A beautiful day to be in the park too; it’s in the 10% of Dumbrăvița that I don’t actively despise. But heck, I really am teetering here. Then when I got back I felt like complete crap and realised I wasn’t coping at all. I’m starting to feel seriously isolated here. It’s been a bit of a problem ever since I moved into this flat in 2022.

On Thursday the damn Scrabble league started up again. All way too hard. I’m playing one of my games against someone who was literally the US national champion in 2014. He works at Google. I’ve thrown everything at him but it almost certainly won’t be enough.

I’ve discovered a new podcast – maybe it’s not even new – by the people who used to do Fivethirtyeight before they got rid of it. I used to really like Fivethirtyeight. It was my favourite website during (and in the period before) Trump’s first term. So that’s nice. Especially when the midterms are only nine days away.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking I might move back to New Zealand in 2028. Last night when I was lying in bed I thought, maybe 2027 would be better. When I spoke to Dad he said it’s a shame I don’t really have any connections in NZ anymore. That’s true, but I don’t have many in Romania either. In fact I had more five years ago than I had now. If I restricted myself only to places where I have connections, I wouldn’t live anywhere.

Update: I’m a tiny bit better now. I’ve managed to do a few bits and pieces around the flat and send the odd email or two. And organise lessons. And read a bit. And see the doctor. We had a pleasant chat. The man who was rushed off to hospital was fine. I’m really not looking forward to what might await me at ANAF in the morning.

Family - Language teaching - Maths teaching - Scrabble

Bingo!

October 20, 2026 by 0 Comments

I’ve had a cold for the last few days, and though I’m still struggling, I made it to the swimming pool this morning.

Yesterday I called Mum and Dad from Buziaș, among the rich autumn colours. So they’re coming to the UK in 2027. They’ve already booked their tickets. They’ll be staying for absolutely ages, from sometime in May until mid-August. That’s even longer than this year, which they said was too long. Maybe they feel it’ll be their last trip over. I’d planned to go to New Zealand in August, to get out of the heat for one thing, but I can nix that idea now, unless I go in late August and into September (after school starts, which will mean missing out on work). It would have been cool if they (or Mum, let’s be honest) had run it past me first before committing, but hey, Mum would have booked the cheapest option regardless of how it affected anyone else. They’re flying direct to the UK – a silly idea – although at least they’re having a stopover on the way back. Whatever happens, there’s no way I’ll be staying in Timișoara all of next summer. The heat just messes me up too much.

Update: As I write this, two cars have collided in the car park.

There’s no further news about the sale of Mum and Dad’s flat in St Ives. There are still legal hurdles to be overcome that I don’t understand. My brother told them that he doesn’t want to hear about the flat anymore. They “drone on about it for half an hour”, as he put it. As I don’t have kids, I suppose I have more “bandwidth” for this stuff than he does, and more sympathy. Nobody should be dealing with this in their late 70s. It keeps them up at night.

I’ve had a bit more success with the nine-year-old girl from Thailand. It’s no wonder she’s struggling. She’s had no continuity whatsoever. She moved to India at age five, then to Romania at eight. Though her spoken English is good, her go-to language is Thai. Then at school her classmates will mostly be speaking Romanian. When I saw her on Friday she cut up rough as soon as I arrived. But then she calmed down and she did far better than I expected when it came to adding numbers. As for English, her teacher seems to have figured out that comprehension exercises are beyond her. Her latest worksheet just tested sh- and ch- words. One of the words was ship. I asked her what it meant, just to be sure. Something you find on a farm. I see. I’ve got another session with her later today. She’ll be the last of three young girls, one after the other.

Good luck with number 3

On the way to Buziaș yesterday I stopped briefly at the village of Chevereșu Mare. There was a woolly ram, stock-still, next to someone’s fence whose colour it matched perfectly. This thing wasn’t moving and I seriously thought for a minute that it was a new sculpture. Then it budged.

At the weekend I watched a rather depressing, but very well made, 2009 documentary from Canada about serious bingo players. I wonder how it was recommended to me. Years ago I made a variety of bingo games which I still play with my students to improve their vocabulary (they have pictures rather than numbers), and “bingo” is a term in Scrabble for when you use all seven tiles in one turn, so maybe the algorithm picked up somehow that the word “bingo” features quite prominently in my life. I didn’t even know serious bingo was a thing, but it absolutely is. I was shocked by how joyless the experience was for these people. For a start it’s different from British-style bingo that you might get at slightly seedy seaside resorts where the numbers go from 1 to 90, many of which have special “calls” like “two fat ladies” for 88 or “unlucky for some” for 13. In this version the numbers only went up to 75 and any vestige of comedy was gone. There was so much denial, as expected, from these gamblers about how much they were losing. Saddest of all was the lady of about 90 who won $700 one time, and happily proclaimed that she’d spend it on bingo.

I finished the Scrabble league with seven wins and seven losses. That surpassed my expectations; I didn’t draw fantastically and I faced some strong opponents. I’ve signed up for the next round, where I’ll be in the same division.

Autism - Family - Language teaching - Maths teaching - Scrabble

Nine going on five, and autism, the latest culture war

October 13, 2026 by 0 Comments

Earlier today I had a proper headache. It wasn’t as bad as the ones I had in the spring, but it slowed me down nonetheless. While I was in pain, I was also yawning. Luckily it only lasted three hours or so.

I’ve just finished a lesson with a nine-year-old girl. A waste of time, basically, but her mother insists. She didn’t want to be there, and that’s hardly her fault. On Saturday I had my third lesson with the other nine-year-old girl, the one who speaks good English but is only semi-literate. I talked to Mum about her yesterday. She gave me some advice: to focus on three-letter CVC words, then move on to consonant blends. It can be handy having an ex-primary school teacher as a parent, and she’s absolutely right. The problem is that she gets homework designed for age nine, not five, and her parents expect me to help her with that, which actively gets in the way of her learning. Then there’s maths. She’s years behind there too. In the recent test in which she literally got no marks at all, her teacher wrote nothing on the paper except a scrawled “0/15”. When I asked her if I could take a picture, she agreed.

This was the first question on the test:


Unlike most of the other questions where she at least wrote (or drew!) something, she made no attempt at this one. And I’m not surprised. There are three tasks you have to fulfil here. First, read and understand the question. I doubt she could have done that. Second, realise that you need to put the 1 first, then the 3, and so on, to make the smallest possible five-digit number that uses all the digits. Third, you have to put that number in words. That means knowing how we express that kind of number as well as being able to write thirteen and hundred and thousand and stuff like that. Two of those three tasks aren’t even maths, they’re English! She would have had no hope. Then you add in the fact that she doesn’t like maths and (so far) lacks the maturity to understand that you sometimes have to do things you don’t like, and the overall picture isn’t pretty.

After Saturday’s lessons I picked up Dorothy and we drove to Buzad which is just over an hour away, so she could bring a load of apples and pears back to Timișoara. When she asked me (in a message) if I could do this, I cursed. After my lessons I just wanted to get home and not have to see anyone. But actually it was nice chatting in the car – the time went by quickly – and the palette of autumn colours (and some trees hadn’t turned yet) was beautiful. Plus it was good to go back to the village. I hadn’t enjoyed the previous two times – once it was far too hot, while the other time I felt like crap. When we were back in Timișoara we got pizzas from the place next door. They had Italian music playing and even – slightly weirdly – told us in Italian how much we needed to pay. Ottanta.

This morning I read something about overdiagnosis of autism and ADHD. There was a lot to unpack. I totally agree that children are being overmedicated for these conditions to a dangerous level, especially in the US. I also agree that if one in five kids (or whatever the latest figure is) in the UK now has an official diagnosis of autism, ADHD or some other learning or behavioural difficulty that entitles them to a learning assistant at school and/or some form of disability benefit, that’s financially unsustainable. Parents are increasingly keen for their children to get a diagnosis just so they can receive these benefits. But on the flip side (and I can only really talk about autism here – I certainly don’t have ADHD), being even mildly autistic makes so many aspects of life so much harder that having some form of support is pretty damn useful. Labels are largely unnecessary, and there don’t need to be cash handouts except in severe cases, but a support group or someone to bounce ideas off is extremely valuable. Apart from a little bit in Auckland and Wellington when I was already 30-plus, I missed out on all of that – I’ve never had a diagnosis – so I’ve had to navigate life on my own. Very much on my own. My coping mechanism has so often been to retreat from people, to avoid embarrassment or exhaustion, and I’ve failed to form relationships as a result. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have had someone to help me find an alternative? In the face of overdiagnosis and overmedication, a new culture war has emerged. In the eyes of many, if you’re autistic, deal with it. No excuses. Can’t manage job interviews. Tough. That’s your own fault. Let’s all go back to 1976. Or better, 1876. The Victorians had it right. One thing that really hasn’t helped is the removal of Asperger’s as a condition when the fifth edition of the DSM – an American publication – came out in 2013. The distinction between autistic people who can’t feed or clothe themselves (unlike me) and those who struggle with open-plan offices (like me) was very helpful. What I don’t understand is why the rest of the Western world had to follow what the Americans did. As is the case so often, fuck ’em. Seriously.

In other news, the sale of my parents’ flat in St Ives still hasn’t gone through. There’s some hold-up involving the buyers’ solicitors. Dad said in an email that he still fears the nightmare scenario of the sale falling through entirely, almost a year after their tenants said they wanted to buy.

Scrabble. I rejoined the league last Thursday. They put me in the sixth division out of 14. According to the analysis I’ve been playing well. Whether that will be good enough to save me from relegation remains to be seen.

Books - Language teaching - Romania

7/10/16

October 7, 2026 by 0 Comments

Today is the tenth anniversary of my arrival in Romania. It felt amazing, looking back. I’d taken five trains over two days, plunging ever deeper into Europe – from the UK to France, then on to Germany, Austria, Hungary, and eventually Romania. After taking the taxi from Timișoara’s main railway station to the guest house, I’d finally made it.

My first full day in the country didn’t give me the best impression. The first thing I saw in the morning was the old abattoir. Then I was followed around a supermarket by security guards who aggressively rifled through my bag before I was allowed to leave. I didn’t go back to that shop for another four months. I visited an outdoor market in which a man hanged himself (as I heard on the news) a few hours later. The following day was great though, as were most days. After a trip around some of Romania’s main cities I came back to Timișoara and looked for a place to live. And some work. Autumn turned to winter. The national day parade on 1st December kicked off the Christmas market which was magical. It was like being in a wonderland. It helped that everything was so cheap then. Between Christmas and New Year I moved into my flat, slap-bang in the middle of this beautiful city. I had to pinch myself. I was unfazed by the harshness of my first winter. That winter there were the anti-corruption protests, the likes of which I’d never seen before, with people marching past my flat in their tens of thousands, on several bitterly cold nights in a row.

Then there was the teaching. Everything about that was very exciting. A complete departure from all that corporate crap. It didn’t take me long to realise that yes, this was what I wanted to do. I put up a number of ads and got a lot of responses, mostly on the phone. This presented quite a challenge at the beginning because my Romanian was shaky at best. Slowly but surely, I got more work, and by early 2018 I was struggling to keep up with demand. I was literally the only person in the city giving private lessons as a native speaker. The excitement of being in Timișoara and the sounds and smells continued until the summer of 2018, but it wore off quickly after that. The Covid period brought some of that back, strangely enough, because the sights and sounds were different. After ten years, I still like Timișoara very much, even if things have become a bit samey. I don’t know how many more anniversaries I’ll have. Summers are messing me up and I’m already dreading the next one.

Swimming. Would you believe it, the pool is closing on the 30th of this month. I don’t know why. It’s something to do with the city council. The receptionist told me she’s looking for a new job. On Monday I signed a petition – I was the 92nd signature and by today there had been many more. A great shame – I’ve only really just started. Maybe the pool will reopen under different management, but who knows? This is Romania. This city has other pools of course, but they’ll be further away and probably have strings attached.

A stat I saw in an article last weekend: in 2024, 48% of Brits didn’t fly at all. This was presented as a high figure. Look, lots of people get by without flying. You probably could too. But what surprised me was that the percentage of non-flyers was so low. A small majority did fly. That would have been very far from the case 30 years ago. I saw a similar thing earlier this week about YouTube views. “Only 4%” of YouTube videos get at least 10,000 views. I was surprised it was anything like that high.

I don’t think the author of a book has ever died while I’ve been reading it. Until this week. I’m still getting through Jeffrey Archer’s book – it’s very well written but political ambition isn’t a subject that enthuses me – and on Monday he died at the age of 86. He lived in Grantchester, a village near Cambridge, so just down the road from where I grew up. He (and his wife) were always in the news – in 2001 he went to prison for lying in court.

Update: I’m back from my lessons. With a nine-year-old girl I did an exercise I’ve done with a few kids now: I wrote the names of several objects in the room on Post-It notes and asked her to stick them to the right things. One of them was the ceiling which I had to help her with. It always reminds me of when I did that myself in the kitchen at home. I couldn’t have been any more than four. We didn’t have Post-It notes (Wikipedia tells me they came out in the US in 1977; perhaps by 1984 they still hadn’t made their way to the UK) so I had to use paper, sellotape and scissors. That was how I learnt (from Mum) how to spell ceiling. She also corrected my spelling of droors for “drawers”. I thought it should logically be spelt like “doors”.

In Piața Operei on the way back there was a protest, only 30-strong, of people chanting “Călin Georgescu is president”. In Romanian, obviously. Georgescu was the guy who won the first round of presidential election in December 2024, before it was declared null and void. Romanian politics is typically dysfunctional at the moment. I can’t begin to understand it all.

In the changing room this morning I heard someone say that the outside temperature would be the same as in the pool. That was pretty accurate. We reached an unseasonable 27 degrees today. Tomorrow it’s forecast to be one degree warmer. Then it should drop to something approaching normal.

Family - Language teaching - Maths teaching - Scrabble

The three Rs

October 5, 2026 by 0 Comments

Pretty light on the news front. Yesterday I had four lessons, all in Dumbrăvița. Since then I’ve been thinking what the heck I should do with that nine-year-old girl from Thailand. Her Thai mum met a German guy in … I can’t remember where, and a year ago they moved to Romania for his work. He must earn pretty well because she goes to the super-expensive British school. They’re away from the sprawling estate of Dumbrăvița and they have a good section, with apple and plum trees and three chickens. They used to have a rooster too, but they got rid of it after the neighbours complained at the noise. Anyway, this girl. She speaks perfectly decent English, but she’s only semi-literate at best. And semi-numerate too. She got zero out of 15 in a recent maths test and didn’t even understand that she’d got zero. I think her parents would like me to attack her maths too. She clearly getting very little help from her teacher despite the vast expense.

Today I drove to Buziaș. It’s nice and relaxing there. It might have been better if I’d gone in a couple of weeks – the leaves will be falling off the trees then – though I could always go back. My brother called me while I was there. I turned the camera around and showed him the fountain and bandstand and covered walkway, but he seemed unimpressed. He wanted to know where the people were. I said that it was Sunday morning and a lot of them would have been at church, but really it would have been quiet no matter the time of day or week. A few people walking their dogs and the occasional squirrel. That’s why if I left Romania I’d have a hard time going back to England. It’s so hard to escape people there. My brother showed me both the kids. My niece is changing rapidly. My brother tested his son’s maths. What’s two plus two? Four, he proudly said. I then asked my nephew what four plus four was. He didn’t know, but he did know five plus five. He’s getting pretty good with his science now, my brother said.

I played four games of Scrabble today. I won the first three, extending my winning streak to six, thanks to some really lucky draws. But in the last game things just didn’t happen for me. I can have no complaints. I might rejoin the league again this week after a six-week absence.

Back to the swimming pool tomorrow.

Family - Language teaching - Music - Politics

There isn’t much of her

October 3, 2026 by 0 Comments

As I’m about to reach the ten-year mark in Romania, I thought it would be an idea to write a series of posts about how things work (and sometimes don’t) in the country I’ve called home for the last decade. So that’s coming up.

Last night I called Mum and Dad. (New Zealand’s recent move to summer time has made calling them that little bit easier.) They’re already thinking about a potential trip to Europe next year. I told them to consider Turkish Airlines. There’s now a flight from Istanbul to Timișoara that didn’t exist when I flew Turkish three years ago. Mum, as usual, made a trip to the loo in the middle of our conversation. Things aren’t too flash down there. Then this morning I called my aunt and uncle. My uncle, who celebrated his 85th birthday last weekend, doesn’t say a lot these days. My aunt seemed concerned about Mum. “There isn’t much of her.” She thinks Mum has lost even more weight.

Andy Burnham made a rousing speech at the Labour conference on Tuesday. When I heard about it I decided to watch the recording in its entirety. Yes, it was excellent. A total departure from the “our party is great, our opponents are crap” stuff you normally get. For once, someone has recognised that the country has been on the wrong track for bloody ages and things need to change. His desire to reform the UK electoral system (wouldn’t that be great?) and totally overhaul the disastrous care home “system” (which currently takes away old people’s home and savings) stood out for me. Whether the government can actually achieve any of this, even with a big majority, is another matter – Britain’s politicians have a lot less agency over what happens to the country than they used to.

I’ve just been for my fourth swim of the week. The guy with the Ironman Tallinn backpack wasn’t there today. (He does the four strokes including butterfly – the full medley – at almost twice the speed I go at.) It hasn’t been a bad week for exercise. On Wednesday, for instance, I made several bike trips – to my lessons, to the produce market, and to the pool.

I recently discovered a YouTube channel called Past Tense of Banana. Not a bad name. It’s run by a man in his sixties from the north-east of England. This guy has a ton of subscribers. His thing is correcting videos (often on TikTok, which I’ve never used) made my English teachers. This is wrong, that is wrong, the next thing is wrong. That’s fine in principle, especially as there’s a lot of shady stuff out there, but I simply don’t agree with quite a few of his overconfident “corrections” and explanations. In one instance he says you have to say “there is a large number of stars in the sky” rather than “there are a large number…” because the verb has to agree with the (singular) noun “number”. Sorry mate, but that just isn’t how language works.

Kitty has turned into a proper furry friend. I look back at what she was like at the start. Unused to me and this flat, she verged on being positively evil. She has completely changed. It’s rather lovely to have her sitting on my lap as I watch a TV show. Lately that has meant episodes of Black Mirror. My favourite episode, called Loch Henry, was set on a remote Scottish island. It included this great song by Melanie Safka, who was known at the time (1971) as just Melanie. She died in 2024.