by It’s a lovely evening in Timișoara. At 8pm it’s a balmy 24 degrees. Looking at the forecast, the daily highs are a string of 29s, stretching out as far as I can see. The Bega boats are finally back in business after a delay of almost two years caused my Romanian bureaucracy.
After I caught that tiny fish last month, my next session wasn’t so good. The handle fell off the reel and into the river. Luckily it settled on a ledge in the water, so I could “fish” it out fairly easily, but the screw holding it in place was gone. That same morning I saw the repulsive sight of a dead dog floating down the river. When I told Dad about the reel, he put three screws in the post for me in the hope that one of them would fit, and it did, so I’m now back in business. I’m yet to have any success though. Most times I go down to the Bega, the banks are lined with fishermen, often with maximum roddage. But occasionally it’s completely deserted and I have no idea why. It’s like there must have been a public service broadcast on Radio Timișoara, loud and clear: “There are no, repeat, NO, fish in the Bega today. Seriously, don’t even bother.” One of these occasions was last Friday. Not another living soul. A woman came up to me and asked, “Was there, or will there be, anything in the Bega?” Sorry? Maybe I misunderstood the Romanian. She then repeated her question, which I understood but didn’t understand at the same time. It seemed so cryptic. I still don’t know what she meant. Today I got a much more sensible “Did you catch anything?”
Thursday was Firemen’s Day in Romania: Ziua Pompierilor. There was a big parade of firefighters and fire engines past the cathedral and my apartment block.
Yesterday was the Feast of the Cross, or Ziua Crucii. A crowd of thousands, many carrying candles, congregated outside the cathedral last night and gradually made their way inside to the sound of someone drumming on a wooden cross. The bells continued into the late evening (not just the usual quarter-hourly bells) and I could hear a sermon being sung at about five o’clock this morning. The feast has extended into today, with people snaking around the cathedral. I remember all this from last year, and I still don’t quite know what it’s all about.
On Friday I had a good session with my new 17-year-old female student. This took place in Dumbrăvița, on Strada Pluto of all places. I posted some flyers on that street last week, for its name as much as anything. (I lived in a damp basement flat on a street called Pluto Place on Auckland’s North Shore in 2007-08, hence Plutoman.) After a chat, I gave her what I hope was a helpful explanation of the difference between the past simple and the present perfect, and then we studied a news article about a marathon swimmer. I was then prepared to give her little brother a lesson, but his mother said he was too tired. (I saw him, and he looked full of beans to me.) My next lessons with them are scheduled for next Saturday.
