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Nagging doubts as Mum and Dad are about to arrive

June 6, 2026 by 0 Comments

Not long until Mum and Dad get here. Assuming they get here. There are nagging doubts over whether their check-in (which they can’t do until Sunday evening, 24 hours before their flight) will work. I spoke to them this morning. They were just about to have breakfast before checking out of their Paddington hotel. They managed to see two shows: Moulin Rouge, which they both thoroughly enjoyed, and Beetlejuice, which they didn’t. (Mum said it was “yuck”.) I saw the Moulin Rouge film at the cinema with my grandmother. It didn’t do a lot for me then (I was 21), but it sounds like I’d now enjoy a theatre performance of it.

On Tuesday they said on the radio that there were only nine days until the football World Cup. So there are now only six. And this time, just like last time, I really couldn’t give a damn. Even though New Zealand are in it. With 48 teams, it’s such a bloated competition. It’ll take 72 games just to eliminate a third of the teams. Seriously, sod that. Plus it’s in America and all that has come to mean, and matches will be taking place at all hours of the night for me.

On the radio – probably the same day that they talked about the World Cup – they played Videli noci (“I’ve seen the night”) by Moldovan band Zdob și Zdub, a song I hadn’t heard before. It was in Russian and I couldn’t make out any words except “tram” and “taxi”. I really liked it, and assumed it was a new song of theirs, but in fact it came out in 2001. Recently I played one of Paul Simon’s albums on my record player. (I’ve got a few of them.) One of the songs was My Little Town. Ugh, I don’t like this song, I thought as I was listening to it. I mean, it’s a very good song (it’s Paul Simon after all), but the lyrics – “Nothing but the dead and the dying in my little town” – are upsetting. Right at the other end of the spectrum from very good songs, Life by Des’Ree came on the radio when I was in the car. I’m afraid of a ghost, let’s have a piece of toast, doo-doo-da-doo, or however it goes. It was a pretty big hit when it came out in 1998, so who am I to judge?

I saw on the BBC this week that in 2024 only 9% of transactions in the UK were cash. That figure would be much higher in Romania, but it’s gradually coming down here too. I was wondering what kids do with money in a cashless world. How does pocket money work exactly? I was also thinking about display technology. When I was growing up, different types of information were displayed in their own distinct ways. Newsstands with handwritten headlines. The newspapers themselves. Thermometers. Billboards. Road signs with their extremely clear font. (In New Zealand the smaller road signs were often hand-painted, which I thought was cool.) Petrol prices. Departure boards at railway stations and airports. Clocks, in many different forms. The scoreboards at Wimbledon (dot-matrix on the two biggest courts, manually operated on all the others). And so on. And now practically everything is, rather depressingly, just a video screen. I thought about this as I was driving along and there were video billboards everywhere with the exception of one which had those mechanical triangular prism-shaped slats and showed three different adverts in a cycle.

Scrabble. It isn’t getting any easier in the latest round of the league and I’ll do well to survive. I did however make BACTERIUM in one game, putting down my seven letters on the front of UM which was already on the board. It’s pretty rare that I ever make a nine-letter word.

It’s proper summer here now: the smell of the lime trees, the first mosquito in my bedroom, and birds (jackdaws I think) waking me in the morning with their strangled-cat sound.

Family - Scrabble

Living very separate lives

June 3, 2026 by 0 Comments

My teaching hours have fallen off a cliff. I don’t mind that – I’ve got things to sort out before my parents come on Monday – but it does feel a bit weird. Tomorrow I’ve got five lessons scheduled, so a full day, but that’s the exception at the moment.

I spoke to Mum and Dad last night. I expected them to be in St Ives, but no, they were in a hotel room in London. Paddington, to be more precise. Maybe half a star, Mum said. They plan to see a show there. Or two or three. We had a longish chat, despite the iffy connection. We talked a fair bit about my brother. He seems slightly put out that Mum and Dad are seeing me first, even though he gets that it’d be unpleasantly hot for them if they left it much later. He wants them to make two trips down to his place to somehow make up for seeing me first. I spoke to him recently and it was almost like we were on different planets. He mentioned the Russian drone incursion because he’s into that stuff – it goes with the territory of his job (and his next job) to be into that stuff – but he never asks me anything else about Romania or what my daily life might consist of. When I said that Mum and Dad were flying into Cluj, it would have been really cool if he’d asked me how to spell it or tried to locate it on a map or wondered what the architecture might be like there. But he obviously doesn’t care. I mean, we always get on well, and he’s happy for me that my life has improved since I moved to Romania, but he’s never been curious as to what that life may entail. I hoped he might come and see me here. That was probably never very likely, even if he hadn’t had kids or if Covid hadn’t happened, but it’s highly unlikely now. My sister-in-law wouldn’t be interested either – she likes cruises and theme parks – though I’m sure she’d like it here if she ever made the trip. Anyway, my parents said he’s never interested in what they’re up to in New Zealand either. I said that he at least has the excuse of already knowing New Zealand, unlike Romania which he has never set foot in.

The next round of the Scrabble league starts tomorrow. I’ll be in the third division after finishing bottom in the previous round. That’s still well above where I “should” be, and there are still very strong players working their way up the divisions, so if I suffer another relegation I will hardly be surprised. Last weekend there was a huge tournament in Bangkok, with about 450 competitors in five divisions, each playing 36 games over four days. The schedule – ten games on each of the first three days and a further six on the last day – sounded punishing. Did anyone even get to see any of Bangkok, after travelling all that way? The Australian lady who beat me in a close game asked me if I was making the trip. I’ll be wearing a green top with the Aussie flag and my name on it, she said. I’ve added in my profile that I’ve never played a Scrabble tournament in my life. People assume I’m a regular player. She competed in the third division, finishing in the middle of the pack. They streamed many of the games, and I watched a few of them. What really struck me was how often a four or five-letter word was the optimal play. My poor knowledge of obscure fours and fives is a big handicap, and I’m currently trying to learn them and make them stick in my mind. That’s no easy task.

I’m a bit nervous about my parents’ trip. Mum and I have pleasant phone conversations which lull me into a false sense of security, but then when we actually see each other I get my fingers burnt. In case my brain has filtered out previous episodes, I have my blog posts to remind me. I’m more emotionally prepared for seeing Mum than I’ve ever been, and let’s hope that helps. If we (and Dad) can have two largely stress-free weeks together, that would be the best thing to happen this year. By the way, Elena – the lady who lives above me – has agreed to look after Kitty while I’m away.

It’s great to feel normal once again. I thought I might never get back here. Fingers crossed I don’t suffer another terrible migraine.

Update: I’ve been teaching a guy in his mid-thirties for a while now; several months ago his 17-year-old niece joined him in the sessions. But three weeks ago tragedy struck for their family. Her 14-year-old brother was riding an electric scooter when he was hit by a car, and since then he has been in a coma. Those things are so dangerous. It goes without saying that we’re not having lessons at the moment.

This afternoon the twins told me about a 16-year-old boy who was killed by a car while walking in Dumbrăvița on Monday – Children’s Day. The boy was a very good footballer. He had no choice but to walk on the road because there was no pavement, as is the case on many streets in Dumbrăvița. The car was travelling far too fast – over 100 km/h. I read a news item about the accident in which the writer wondered how one of the richest suburbs in the country could have almost no pavements.

Environment - Family - Scrabble - Writing a book

Bad books but feeling much better

May 29, 2026 by 0 Comments

I’m feeling almost normal now. That feels like a miracle after the last three months. I haven’t been sleeping all that well, but that’s because I’ve had a lot of stuff circling around my head, like my parents’ stay in Romania and the books. Oh yes, those books that I’ve been trying to get published. They’ve come back. The publishers in town said they wanted to have another go at getting funding under the educational and cultural programme or whatever it is. Last year they didn’t get past the start line because of some technicality or other – the judges or assessors never looked at a single word of either book. So on Wednesday I had a meeting in town with the older woman and her daughter. The old woman never shuts up. After a long yap, she asked me how much I wanted to contribute, assuming the books get accepted. What sort of question is this? What would I even be getting for my money? You’ll get the books. Five hundred copies of each book. Do you want the books published or not? Well, that depends. I started getting pretty stressed, and I suppose combative, because I felt pressure being put on me. It reminded me of the time I was asked to sign the contract to buy my apartment. But but but, what am I even signing? On Wednesday night I spoke to Dad. For heaven’s sake, don’t go through with it, he said. I was up half the night thinking about what to do. Then yesterday common sense prevailed. I messaged the older woman about distribution channels, and it became clear that they simply didn’t exist. I’d be saddled with something like two-thirds of a ton of books that I’d never get rid of. I decided to pull the plug on the whole thing. There is another woman in the publishing world whom I’ve been in touch with, but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Her profile picture on WhatsApp is a mountain overlain by the phrase “Every day in every way I am becoming more and more prosperous”. Next to “About” she has written: “The ones who know it’s not possible are kindly asked to get out of the way of those who are ALREADY DOING IT!” That sort of self-aggrandising shit is an immediate red flag. Do not trust this person.

It’s been hot. Really hot. In Romania and all over Europe. Records have been tumbling all over the place. We got to 33 on Wednesday, and I think in London they got a degree or two on top of that – an all-time high for May, or at least a high going back three centuries or so. I saw Bordeaux hit 37 on Tuesday. That’s just nuts. For a while I’ve been thinking that on 1st August 2056, when it’s 45 degrees in Glasgow and people are dropping like flies, people will be wondering how we had our eye off the ball so egregiously, preoccupied by gender-neutral toilets and such like.

Last Sunday I met up with Mark at the beer factory, though with the hot weather, the place was heaving. We had no chance of getting a table without a booking. So we cycled into the centre of town and sat outside at Berăria 700. It was quite lovely there. We had a great chat. We talked a lot about our childhoods, which were remarkably similar despite him being nearly ten years older than me. We even strayed for a while into politics and the possibility of Andy Burnham becoming UK prime minister. I realised how much I’ll miss him once he’s gone. In four weeks he’ll set off with his wife on a mission, to scale Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s almost 6000 metres; I hope you know what you’re doing. They’re doing it properly (as you should), with a real sherpa or whatever it is they call it in Africa, so it won’t be cheap. Mark and his two older brothers were actually born in Tanzania, so I think that’s part of it. After their big adventure they’ll come back to Romania for a few days before returning to the UK to live. His wife has got herself a job at a private school in Preston. I’m sure I’ll see him over there at some point. I suggested we could even meet up in Manchester, which I’ve never even been to. He went to uni there in the late eighties and early nineties. What a time to be there, I said, at the height of the Madchester scene. You’re twistin’ my melon, man. But he said it largely passed him by.

It’s only ten days until Mum and Dad come over. (They were confused about the dates and thought they were flying out this coming Monday.) They’re enjoying their time in the UK, although they’re hardly loving the heat. They’ve been on their bikes a lot, going out early in the morning when it’s cooler. I’ve been very impressed. (Waking up early was a symptom of their jet lag, and they’ve kept to that schedule.) I’ve still got a lot of cleaning and tidying to do before they arrive, and I haven’t even thought about what we’ll do in Cluj.

Scrabble. I’ve finished the latest round with four wins and ten losses, and will almost certainly finish dead last of the second division when the remaining games are done and dusted. I played fine, with the exception of one moment where I completely missed an out play and lost the game by eight points, 529-521. I’d never played a game before with a four-figure aggregate score – that was totally crazy. I played four bingos and still lost. I still would have been relegated even if I’d won. My opponents have just been too good. I’m not disappointed at all because: (a) the outcome was in line with my expectations, (b) I’m amazed I ever got into division two in the first place, and (c) all the stats point to a decent performance on my part that I can take a lot from. Oh, and I shouldn’t be too disappointed if I suffer another relegation in the next round.

Family - Life :) - Scrabble

They made it (and are in fine fettle)

May 22, 2026 by 0 Comments

Mum and Dad arrived in the UK on Tuesday afternoon. They’ve coped remarkably well with the flight, despite the 14-hour leg between Sydney and Dubai which they vowed never to repeat. (I’ve done a few 12s in my time, and maybe a 13, but 14 is certainly up there.) On Monday I had another bad headache. I was in the middle of it when Mum called me from Sydney. I could hear a screaming child in the background and if it was me having to deal with that I’d have wanted to die. My headache stopped just short of the level it has reached lately (otherwise I wouldn’t have answered that call), so it didn’t utterly mess me up for days afterwards. My cold is certainly better now too, though I’ve got a runny nose and I’m coughing up gunk. And fatigue is still a problem.

Last night I booked Mum and Dad’s Ryanair flight from Stansted to Cluj. At the fourth attempt. I was going nuts as things were disappearing from both my phone and laptop screens and at one stage it declined my card. But I got it done. Their flight will get in at close to ten on the evening of Monday 8th June. The next step will be booking some accommodation. The stakes feel high there. Obviously I’m greatly looking forward to seeing them. I just desperately hope things don’t turn sour with Mum.

I’ve had a whole load of cancellations this week. Today my six lessons have become three, and that’s assuming nobody else pulls the plug. In the past that would have been majorly annoying, but not now. Suddenly I need all the breaks I can get.

The new round of Scrabble – I’m now in the second division out of 13 – has started today. I’m expecting a bloodbath. The format of the league mitigates against the fact that I’m comparatively slow in finding my plays, but nothing will get round me simply not knowing enough words. Even getting this far has been nothing short of a miracle.

The strawberries and cherries are now out, as are the new potatoes and peas in a pod. I’m switching to my summer diet which involves very little meat.

The area around where I live is being revamped and is like a huge building site:

Yes, we have a dinosaur park. It’s in a horrible location next to the mall.

A heron by the river last week

Whoever owns this bike is a fan of the (very good) Romanian band Robin and the Backstabbers

Family - Life :) - Politics - Scrabble

Taking my medicine

May 18, 2026 by 0 Comments

Mum and Dad are flying to the UK tomorrow. It’s most likely they’ll come over to Romania on 8th June – three weeks tomorrow. In fact they may book their flights to Romania just before they set off to London. We had a bit of a discussion about that this morning. There are so many crappy options involving inconvenient departure times and having to stay a night in Luton or Stansted (or even on the floor of the airport, but I don’t think they’d be crazy enough to do that); finding an uncrappy one isn’t that easy. It’s looks like they’ll fly into Cluj. When I know that for certain, I’ll book a hotel there. A proper hotel, with a reception, a good breakfast (hopefully) and some decent facilities. I don’t want the stress of hanging around waiting for the owner to come (or even answer their phone) and not knowing which box to get the key from and not being able to make a pot of tea and X and Y and Z.

I visited the doctor on Wednesday. He saw my throat was all red and he wrote me out a prescription for six different medicines including my antidepressant as well as an antibiotic, a nasal spray and some things that fizz. My normal pharmacy didn’t have the antibiotic so I had to queue for 35 minutes – way out the door – at the place over the road. I wasn’t even sure they’d have it but thankfully they did. (And was my doctor even sure that I had something bacterial anyway?) One of the drinkable medicines tastes vile. When I was little, Mum would make my brother and I take a purple liquid – an anti-worm medicine – called Pripsen. “It tastes just like raspberries,” Mum would say. It did not taste like raspberries. We had to take it twice, at an interval of two weeks, the second time to kill the worms’ eggs. The thought of the stuff makes me shudder. Even the name sounds like retching. I remember writing notes to myself – Be brave. One time I puked on the floor. Circa 1990, they came out with worm pills, but too late for me and my brother. Four decades on from Pripsen, this yellowish-orange stuff is supposed to aid my immunity. It doesn’t taste quite as bad as Pripsen, but it’s not far off, and because you have to dissolve it in boiling water you’re forced to drink it slowly. That’s the worst part.

I am actually getting better. I’m still full of cold but it’s slowly subsiding. In fact, compared to Monday or Tuesday (when I cancelled a load of lessons), it’s a breeze. The big question is whether I’ll get my energy back when the cold has finally gone. Yesterday I was alarmed at how sluggish I was when I went for a walk.

Eurovision was last night. Our neighbours Bulgaria won it; Romania came a very respectable third. In between were Israel (!). The UK came bottom, with only one point from an entry that was apparently dire. So they narrowly avoided the ignominy of getting nul points. That’s a fake French phrase: I’m pretty sure the French would simply say zéro points. I didn’t watch any of it; in Romania’s advanced time zone, it’s on too late for me. (And it hardly piques my interest in the same way that the snooker does, say.)

British politics has gone a bit crazy. Keir Starmer is unpopular just about everywhere. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, has decided to run for one of the constituencies in that city in a by-election – a Labour MP stepped aside for him. If he wins, he’s extremely likely to become prime minister. He’s popular in the party. (For that matter, I like him – and his policies – too.) But he might not win, since Reform have done very well of late up there. The stakes in this by-election, which is likely to be in a month’s time, are huge.

Scrabble. Incredibly, it looks like I’m getting promoted to the second division. Out of 13 divisions. And that’s after only winning half my games in the league – the table has shaken out in a bizarre way. I’ll probably finish fifth and there are six promotion spots. I am nowhere near the level of division two. How I’ve got that high is a mystery. On the Eurovision theme, I’ll surely meet my Waterloo when it starts up again. The league has a chat facility which has been taken over by young bros, alienating people like me in the process. One older player mentioned this and I said “I agree”. The second division is likely to be pretty bro-heavy, unfortunately.

I’m dreading taking that orange liquid. If I’m dreading that, that’s probably not a bad sign.

Family - Life :) - Maths teaching - Politics - Scrabble

It’s ALL like freezing cold sea water

May 11, 2026 by 0 Comments

So last week I felt I was maybe coming back to life, then on Friday I came down with a cold – a horrible chesty one, coughing up gunge – and it was back to square one again. Right now I also have a headache, though certainly not one of those horrific migraines. Between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon I was supposed to have seven lessons, but two people cancelled, preventing me from disappearing down a pit that I may never have crawled out of. Recently I said that getting out of bed had become like inching into cold sea water. Now all of life has become like that. But worse, because at least the sea feels nice once you’re in. Nothing feels nice at the moment. Nice is history. I must say though that it did feel pretty good to get back home from Dumbrăvița just after three on Saturday afternoon, knowing that I wouldn’t have to see or talk to anybody for the rest of the weekend. I rarely used to take naps in the daytime but now I’m doing so out of necessity. On Thursday morning I had my Romanian lesson and then an English lesson with a new student – I met her at the conversation club – that finished at eleven. Then at 11:30 I could no longer stay awake. That’s pretty damn early to already be dead to the world, and that was even before I had the cold symptoms. I’m seeing the doctor on Wednesday.

I’ve been in touch with Mum and Dad. They leave New Zealand a week today. They plan to fly to Romania after giving themselves time to acclimatise in the UK. It’s likely they’ll fly to Cluj rather than Timișoara to avoid the horrors of flying from Luton and having to stay overnight there. (You can take a Ryanair flight from Stansted to Cluj at a sensible time of day.) I’ll make my way there – a four-hour drive – then pick them up at the airport and go to our accommodation, wherever that happens to be. I said I’d book it this time. Then we’ll spend maybe three days in Cluj before coming back to Timișoara. I don’t know how we’re all going to manage this. My parents will be 76 and 77 next month; I feel like I’m bloody 90. David Attenborough is 100 and I’m sure he’s managing better than I am. I spoke to my brother last night. Not for long – he was busy with the kids (I saw them both) and I didn’t exactly feel like much of a chat. He warned me about accommodation and Mum. You’ll need to tread carefully, he said. He’s right, which is why I decided I’d book it. Last time I let Mum book everything and it all got stressful. I’ll go for a proper hotel with a couple of extra stars this time. The hit to my back pocket (or someone’s back pocket – Mum will insist on reimbursing me) will be worth it. Then my flat has become hopelessly messy again and I’ll have to somehow sort that out in between the lessons and naps and feeling like crap.

The local election results in the UK were dire for Labour and fantastic for Reform and Nigel Farage who really could become prime minister in three years’ time. Under first-past-the-post, a majority is possible with only around 30% of the vote if the opposition is sufficiently fractured. That would surely be another big fat nail in the coffin. A Trump supporter and probably a fan of Putin too. He would have got the British forces properly involved in the Iran war. The Tories did badly too. They’ve tried to copy Reform in many ways, and why would you vote for a watered-down version when you can get the neat version?

I had my last-ever lesson with Matei on Saturday. (I saw him on Friday as well.) He has his two IB (International Baccalaureate) maths exams this week. His parents gave me a backpack as a present. All in all, I must have had about 300 sessions with him. Assuming he gets reasonable grades in his IB, he’ll be off to Bremen University in Germany in September. He’s signed up to do chemistry and biology but may switch to business studies instead.

On Wednesday I saw the girl whom I’d managed to traumatise with my “lightning quiz” the week before. This time she was OK. I think her mother might have drilled her times tables into her.

I haven’t mentioned Kitty for a while. She’s fine. As I write, she’s in her favourite spot atop the dresser at the end of the living room. I wish I had more energy to play and interact with her.

Scrabble. Once again I have a fight on my hands to stay in the division. In one game, which I may well need to win if I’m to survive, I have a small lead and it’s my turn. I’ve got the QU combination but no other vowels and I have no idea what to do.

Right now, life feels like one big relegation. I’m doing what I can to eat and sleep properly (I’ve put on weight) and get some exercise and sunshine. It’s about all I can do.

Driving - Family - Life :) - Other sports - Scrabble

Wu did it, but I’m glad it’s over

May 5, 2026 by 0 Comments

The snooker is over – yay! A pleasant escape, but what a time sink. With big breaks now in my rear-view mirror, my focus has shifted to the summer and making my parents’ visit to Romania as painless as possible, if indeed they get over here. We’ve even discussed them taking the train as I did nearly ten years ago – flying from Luton has become a pain in the arse. (Dad has just emailed me. Mum has been to the dentist, and they said she’s at risk of losing all her teeth! I don’t know any more details than that, but all the more reason for them to come to Romania, where dental bills are a fraction of what you’d pay in New Zealand.)

I’m still struggling with fatigue – the no-snooker thing should at least help there – and another migraine could totally wreck me. I had just over 20 hours of lessons last week, down from over 30 the week before – a number I simply couldn’t handle in the state I was in.

Yesterday I took the car in. The dashboard light is apparently caused by a faulty sensor. The noise I was getting from the front right is the result of a bearing that needs replaced. And they’re also going to clear out my misty headlights. It should all come to just under 1000 lei (£160-odd or nearly NZ$400). Though my car is 20 years old, I want to keep it running as long as possible. It’s kind of a fun car (it’s French!), it’s very economical, and it’s old enough not to have an on-board computer and ghastly (lethal) touch-screen controls.

Oh yes, the snooker. The semi-final between Wu Yize and Mark Allen had absolutely everything. The longest frame ever, massive breaks, and drama at every turn. I didn’t stay up for the last four frames because I had squash with a different Mark in the morning. When I got up, expecting Allen to have won, I couldn’t believe what I read (and then saw). Allen could easily have won 17-14. Then in frame 32 he had the match right there, a final black that he could practically pot in his sleep, for a 17-15 win and a place in the final. The referee even started taking off his gloves as Allen addressed the ball, ready to shake his hand and congratulate him. But he contrived to miss it. Pressure does extraordinary things. What’s more, in the deciding frame which followed, Allen amassed a 47-0 lead. He was four or five pots away from that missed black not mattering, to be able to laugh it off. But he was unlucky enough for two reds to be covering each other, then Wu got in, and that was that. Allen went up a lot in my estimation after I watched his interview. You could hardly be more graceful in defeat. That black reminded me of Jimmy White’s missed black in the 1994 final against Stephen Hendry (I really wanted Jimmy to win that) and Ken Doherty’s missed final black for a 147 against Matthew Stevens in the final of the Masters in 2000, back when a 147 was really something. He missed out a huge chunk of change and a luxury car, if memory serves.

And then came the final between Wu and Shaun Murphy who himself had only just squeaked through in the other semi. Two more days of it! The early going was actually pretty dire, but then it greatly improved. Wu’s long potting was phenomenal, and it gave Murphy huge headaches. How do you play safe when almost nothing is safe against this guy? Wu almost won it 18-16 but fluffed a black and Murphy (in his fifth final and trying to avoid a fourth straight loss in finals) cleared up imperiously. Another decider, the first in a final since 2002. Wu got in, made 80-something, and that was more than enough. It finished at about 12:30 last night, my time. Unlike Zhao Xintong, last year’s winner who was a bit older, 22-year-old Wu needed an interpreter. I have very happy memories of 2002. Peter Ebdon, probably my favourite player at the time, beat Hendry in the decider, on the eve of my final university exams. That gave me just the fillip I needed. (And that pink Ebdon knocked in against Stevens in the semi-final to keep him in it… just like Wu he won two deciders back-to-back.) Ebdon then moved to Dubai and became an anti-vaxer but the less said about that the better.

During the second half of the tournament I failed to find a stream so I was stuck with Romanian commentary on my TV in the kitchen. No big deal. I got used to the terminology. Buzunar (pocket, used in the normal sense of the word too), bilă (ball, a different word from say a tennis ball or football), mănunchi (the pack of reds; used for any bunch or bundle), mantă (cushion), tac (cue), sprijin (rest; also means “support” in all its senses), carambol (cannon, when two balls collide), and so on. The problem arose in the final, when the commentator (whom I thought had been pretty good) was joined by his mate and they kept yammering on about the most irrelevant stuff at the most crucial moments. Knowing when to shut up is a pretty useful skill to have. At times I had to mute them. When I did have the stream it was great. But sadly no John Virgo who died suddenly in February. A huge loss to the game.

The tournament started slowly, then really kicked into life with the Higgins–O’Sullivan match and grew from there. There were some bizarre moments such as a protest about the TV licence and someone who yelled “Don’t forget the Epstein files” or something like that. And all those phones that went off at just the wrong time. In the final, the referee had had enough and actually booted an offending audience member out. No more sport for me for a while. I don’t want the drama, I just want the quiet. As for the upcoming football World Cup in America, forget it.

Squash with Mark wasn’t bad. I started to flag by the end of it. We didn’t score points or anything. Later on Sunday I met up with a bunch of other people at Dorothy’s for the English conversation club. Domnul Mărgineanu, an older chap who hardly knew a word of English when I first met him, had improved beyond belief. We discussed a lot of topics, and unlike in most social situations I didn’t feel under pressure.

I survived again, just, in the Scrabble league. It’s becoming a trend. I won six and lost eight but my strong points differential was the deciding factor. I had some big wins, but lost four games by under ten. One of these days – perhaps very soon – I’m going to disappear through the trap-door. The next round starts on Thursday. I’ll get to play that Romanian guy again. He’s just been in Milton Keynes for a four-day (!) tournament; he won the second division, so I imagine he’s feeling pretty chuffed with himself.

Today it’s forecast to reach 28 degrees. It won’t be long before we get the strawberries, then the cherries, then the watermelons and the stone fruit…

Family - Life :) - Maths teaching - Other sports - Scrabble

What a drag

April 24, 2026 by 0 Comments

Since Saturday I’ve been dragging myself out of bed, or around the supermarket, or off to lessons. It’s all felt like a huge effort. Just like in March, even fairly light physical activity has made me deeply exhale, as if I’m letting off steam. Monday was horrifically bad. Because it was my birthday, more people than usual wanted to communicate with me. I’m not talking a whole lot here, because I just don’t have that many contacts, but it was still far more than I could handle. I was not in a good place mentally that day, or the day after when all the new road works in two different parts of the city totally threw me. I don’t feel I should be driving at all right now. This feels dangerous. And the lessons of course. I’ve kept up a full week of teaching, including maths every day with the girl who has her IGCSE exams next week and the week after. I’m confident that she’ll get at least an A. Maybe even an A-star. She’s bright enough, and her determination is admirable, but it shows you what money can do. On Monday she brought me a box of biscuits for my birthday which was nice. That day, or was it the day after, she was wearing a pair of trainers. Normally she takes off her shoes when she comes in but this time she didn’t. I caught the brand: Hermès. Just imagine. I had half a mind to ask her if she knew how to pronounce it. It’s air-mess, by the way.

Seeing Mark for lunch on Wednesday gave me a slight boost, but it’s still a big struggle. I’m constantly fatigued. To make matters worse, I’ve just about lost my voice. Next week I’m going to cancel a bunch of lessons because that’s the only way I feel I can recover. I’ve never done that before, and when you work for yourself you feel a certain pressure to work whenever you can, but the way I am at the moment that’s a false economy.

Snooker. The second-round matches started yesterday and go through to Monday. The first round was slightly disappointing, though it had its moments. It looked for a while that the second round might be utterly (and depressingly) devoid of qualifiers, but Hossein Vafaei of Iran dismantled Si Jiahui 10-3 in the penultimate first-round match to finish. Just as he did in his last qualifying match, he won the last nine frames. So Iran versus Trump is still on. Vafaei is a colourful character and it certainly makes things more interesting that he’s still there in a sea of British and Chinese players. The most dramatic match I saw was Stan Moody against 2024 champion Kyren Wilson. Moody (born 14/9/06) was playing brilliantly and stood on the verge of an 8-3 lead, but lost seven straight frames, some of them in highly improbable fashion. Mark Williams (born 21/3/75) got through his first match comfortably, 10-4, and his next match starts 90 minutes from now. He plays Barry Hawkins (23/4/79) over the best of 25 frames – three sessions. That’s what’s so great about the snooker. These long, engrossing matches practically warp time and allow you to forget about everything else.

Scrabble. I did avoid relegation, just barely, in the last round. The latest suite of games started yesterday. There are so many Aussies in my division this time. In fact all the divisions have their fair share – I had no idea competitive Scrabble was so big there.

Update: My brother, having been offered that job, has since had to go through various security clearances. The process has been pretty onerous. Mum has even been involved because she has various info relating to his New Zealand citizenship. When I last spoke to Mum, she was really worried. What if the job falls through for him now? Mum looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, her already small frame all shrunken up. It would have been really upsetting for us all if he’d missed out after all of this. But I’ve just spoken to her again and it seems everything will be fine.

It’s a bright sunny day here. I’ve just been to get a new watch strap and a block of sheep’s cheese – even doing that is an effort. That stallholder near the dairy market was blasting out Depeche Mode as usual. And now I’m about to sit down and watch Mark Williams until my first lesson starts.

Family - Life :) - Other sports

Just when I thought I was over it…

April 19, 2026 by 0 Comments

I only had one lesson yesterday (from 9 till 10:30 in the morning, with the 25-year-old woman) as the British School kids are still on holiday. And that was just as well: within half an hour of my lesson finishing I had a horrific headache. Pacing, eye shades, lying on the bed, the sofa, ice from the freezer, anything I could do to ease the pain. It didn’t go quickly. At 3pm it eased just a fraction and I tried to eat a bowl of cereal but could only finish half of it. I finally re-entered the world of the living just after four. Conveniently, Mark Williams’ first-round match with Antoni Kowalski started at 4:30. It wasn’t on TV – they had cycling on instead – but I could watch it online. I kept the cycling on (with the sound down) in the background because of the picturesque views of Pontevedra in north-west Spain. The snooker was good. Williams was fortunate to win a protacted second frame and his 6-3 lead at the end of the session flattered him somewhat. They finish their match tonight.

Since then I’ve just been trying to recover and to build up some strength again. This morning – my last morning of being 45 – I sat in the nearby park and read my book. So many dogs. And pigeons. Just two cats. After that I had a Teams call with my aunt and uncle in Geraldine. My uncle, now 84, didn’t talk much, though I had a good chat with my aunt.

Family

10/4/76

April 10, 2026 by 0 Comments

Today is Mum and Dad’s golden wedding anniversary. It’s one thing that they’ve both survived this long, but to have stuck it out together for 50 years is some achievement. When I spoke to them a bit earlier, they’d just been out for a meal in Temuka with my aunt and uncle (the ones who came to Timișoara; today is also my aunt’s birthday) and another aunt of mine who lives on her own – my uncle (another of Mum’s older brothers) died some years ago. Today I’ve been thinking of my grandparents; both sets made it past 50 years of marriage. Mum’s parents had a huge event, such was their enormous extended family. It took place when we were living over there in 1989. Dad’s parents’ golden wedding was in Rhayader in Wales during the 1995 rugby World Cup. My grandad by that point had fairly advanced Alzheimer’s.

Today is Orthodox Good Friday. It’s nice to have a short break from work. This morning I went to Utvin on my bike. It’s great to even be able to do something like that again. There weren’t many people out and about. Plenty of sheep (and lambs) though, and there was the pleasant ribbit of frogs in the river.

The market on Wednesday

I now need to (finally) tackle the living room which is hopelessly untidy.