by It’s been a while, but after two weeks away, I’m back.
On the Sunday before I left, I felt a sense of foreboding about my trip that I can’t remember feeling before. Things were bound to go horribly wrong. I played tennis that evening – singles once again – and finished (from my perspective) at 6-3, 6-3, 2-4. In the first set I led 5-0 with a set point in the next game, then my opponent started to play. At 5-3, 15-15 (shit! I’m going to lose this set now, after being up five-love), Domnul Sfâra arrived, and that perhaps knocked my opponent off his stride just enough for me. Tiredness, that near-permanent fatigue I’d been feeling, really hit me towards the end of our session. Monday was a busy day of lessons and goodbyes and finding some gender-neutral shoes for the new addition. I wasn’t able to get the made-in-Romania shoes delivered in time, so I bought some Reebok trainers with a friendly face drawn on the tongue; the woman at the checkout asked me if they were for a cat. And then I was off.
I had tons of time for my flight, but needed it all. When your previous flight was in a different epoch, expect the unexpected. I wore a mask to be on the safe side, mainly because of my heavily pregnant sister-in-law. At the airport I met a Frenchman in his seventies who had arrived too early and was in a state of anxiety and confusion. I empathised with him; the airport was full of information that was out of date or misleading or only partially correct. Signs abounded pointing to destinations that you could fly to from Timișoara ten years ago, which might as well have been the Eocene. Timișoara still has one of those delightful split-flap displays which are a dying breed. Whenever a flight takes off or lands, everything has to move up a row, and there’s something poetic about watching all those letters and digits flickety-flack into place every few minutes. If nothing else, the flick-flack noise attracts one’s attention like no video board ever could, unless it is designed to mimic the sound. (In Milan I saw a video board that did just that.) Anyway, I tried to help the Frenchman, apologising for my broken French. Once through security (and yes, I’m almost guaranteed a pat-down of some sort) we all had to stand on the staircase for what seemed like hours. I realised I’d become almost allergic to crowds.
We were delayed by an hour or so, but the flight itself was uneventful, and soon I was in the afternoon heat of Bergamo. I eventually gave up on finding a bus to my B&B on the outskirts of the city, and took an expensive (by my standards) taxi instead. I spoke some simple Italian with the taxi driver, making four languages for the day. (There was no point speaking Italian with virtually anyone else. In that part of northern Italy, it seemed anyone under fifty had more than a decent command of English.) The woman at the B&B was very pleasant. The place was like a farmhouse on the edge of the countryside, and it was popular with cyclists. I slept well but still felt tired the next morning. I had a hearty breakfast (I always appreciate that second B), called my parents, sent my brother a birthday message for his 41st, then made it up the hill to the very picturesque old town. I walked up the famous bell tower, eschewing the lift, making sure I’d reach the top just before the half-hour bell tolled. However, on reaching the top I’d forgotten all about that (this wasn’t the last time on my trip that I felt my age) and I got quite a shock two minutes later. Bonngg!! For a couple of hours I wandered around the old town, or high town as it was otherwise known, grabbing the odd coffee and gelato. I was grateful that it wasn’t so hot. I walked into the new town but found surprisingly little of interest there, so then I trekked back to the B&B.
The next morning after another breakfast where I had the works, I checked out of my relaxing accommodation and got a free bus ride to the city centre because I couldn’t figure out how to pay. I read my book – Anxious People by Fredrik Backman – by the fountains near the railway station until the dot of twelve when sprinklers for the plants suddenly came on and got me soaked. I soon dried off, and I was back on the bus to the airport. Bergamo Airport is modern and surprisingly big, considering the small size of the city. Evidently they’ve turned Bergamo into a hub of sorts. There were automated Covid-hangover toilets that barred you from entering at a certain level of occupancy. I thought I had ages before boarding, but I had an unexpectedly long hike to reach my gate. Two hours later I landed at Stansted, where my brother and sister-in-law picked me up in her almost-new Mazda, which must be a work car. (I panicked initially because we couldn’t find each other and every minute was precious. The parking fee – already exorbitant – became stratospheric after 15 minutes.) It was a real pleasure to see them again, and in three hours on the M-something and the A-something I was at their new house just outside Poole. My brother had changed – mellowed – since I saw him previously. I gave them the trainers which they put in the baby room next to the cot and pram and car seat and who knows what else.
