Life :)

Another marvel

October 20, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

After the Barclays wonder of last Wednesday, this morning saw another miracle. My central heating and hot water got turned on. It’ll take some trial and error to figure out how the thermostat actually works, but I can say with some confidence that tonight I’ll have my first hot shower of October. (I certainly won’t need central heating for a few days. We’ve got 29 forecast today, and 28 tomorrow.) Over the weekend I’ll bake something to give to the couple upstairs, without whose help I’d have been even further up the creek than I’ve felt these last few months. I hope that getting over these hurdles will put a spring in my step because right now everything is an effort – I’m leaden-footed even on a short walk. (I’ve just been for a short walk. A lady in her sixties asked me if there were any pokie machines nearby.) I also hope I can now stem the flow of money from my pocket. Yesterday I got the stitches removed from my back following the cyst removal, and even that cost me what felt like an arm and a leg.

On Wednesday I had a bad lesson. They happen occasionally and that’s OK. This was an online session with the woman who lives near Birmingham. I had the electrician over and you can imagine what happened. As well as the switching on and off, meaning I had to use my phone instead of my laptop, the electrician asked me questions which further disrupted the lesson. My student was unhappy, but what could I have done other than cancel or postpone? I offered to give her the lesson for free, but that didn’t help matters much. Maybe she’ll be silly enough to give up on me completely. I say silly because a UK-based private tutor would cost her something like quadruple.

On Tuesday I had a lesson with the woman in Bucharest. She said that language death is a good thing as it enables people to communicate better. Taking this to its logical conclusion, I asked her if it would be good for the whole world to speak just one language. “Of course,” she said. Learners of English often use “of course” in that way, not realising that it verges on being rude. Her opinion, which she’s perfectly entitled to, is just that; by using “of course” she’s intimating that it’s a universal truth. Part of the problem is that learners want an alternative to “yes”, and “of course” is the alternative they know. I’ve written about this in my book that I would love one day to be published. (Crossing those hurdles might help me focus on things like that.)

Amid the unspeakable horrors in the Middle East, some good news came out of Poland last weekend. The ominous-sounding Law and Justice Party lost power to a much more moderate grouping led by Donald Tusk, whom I thought handled Brexit admirably when he was president of the European Council. In one simple vote, Poland have pulled themselves (and maybe Europe as a whole) back from the abyss. I also see that UK Labour won two by-elections overnight, overturning huge Tory majorities in both seats.

I spoke to Mum this morning. She suggested that only she, not Dad, might come to Europe in the spring. That’s probably because Dad had to make an extra trip and they want to save money. Gah. As I see it, they’ve got three options. One, they both come over. Two, they pay for my brother and his wife and son to fly to New Zealand. Or three, they can be selfish buggers. It’s up to them.

Language teaching - Life :) - New Zealand - Politics - Tennis - The UK

We should leave it at that

October 16, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

The rain is lashing down and I’m grateful for it – I’d have really struggled on the tennis court. I played two hours of singles with Florin yesterday; when time ran out I was up 6-1 6-2 4-6 5-0. That second set score was deceptive – the set was a real battle of attrition, full of long rallies and close games that I somehow won. My efforts left me bereft of energy for the third set, in contrast to the Energizer bunny almost two decades my senior down the other end. I then got a second wind from somewhere. Before tennis I had three lessons – one maths and two English. My 16-year-old English student reiterated what he’d said before, that if Russian forces hypothetically attacked Romania in a couple of years’ time, he’d do all he could to flee the country rather than defend it. He said, “What is there to defend?” Yeesh, where do I start?

So New Zealand has voted in a new National-led government. It was on the cards. I felt sorry for Chris Hipkins, who seemed to me a thoroughly good chap and a very hard worker, leading a dysfunctional party and in the end flailing around trying to make something happen to turn the tide that was rapidly going out on Labour. Because that’s really what that election was – a resounding vote against the incumbents rather than a positive endorsement of National. Indeed, National got a smaller share of the vote than they did in 2017 when they lost power to Jacinda Ardern’s Labour. Crucially this time though, they had some partners to (comfortably) get them over the line. What an opportunity Labour squandered. They won a rare majority in 2020, a mandate for real change, and then they pissed around on fringe issues that didn’t help to make people’s lives better, instead of say, let me see, building homes that people can actually afford. This all serves as a warning to the UK Labour Party. The next UK election is a year or so away, and with the Tories being frankly disgusting right now, Labour should win. But if they don’t use that power to bring about positive change (and boy does the country need it), it won’t mean a thing, and the Tories will likely be back in charge next time around.

On Monday I met a lady from New Zealand (an Aucklander) who lived in Timișoara from 2006 to 2010 and was back visiting the city as part of a round-the-world trip. She was staying with Dorothy. She was pleasant enough, but we just didn’t have that much in common. In the evening I had a new maths student – a 15-year-old girl – who came here for a two-hour session. The following day – the day Dad arrived in London – was a shocker for me. I didn’t quite plumb the depths of 31st January, but at times I got close as I felt overwhelmed. The “emergency” online maths lesson with Matei, which finished at 9:45 that evening, helped to calm me down. Work was going OK; it was just everything else that was a mess. Wednesday was the miraculous day of the Barclays money. Thursday was a weird one. I rode to the north of the city for my lesson with the spoilt teenage girl, but she wasn’t there. I rang the doorbell and called her on the phone. Nothing. I hung around for 20 minutes and went home. Oh dear. Did I offend her so badly that she wanted nothing more to do with me? Did she tell her father and they decided to get back at me? Just after I got home, she sent me a message to say that her phone had died, and we had an online lesson in the evening. On Friday the electrician was supposed to come but he didn’t. Later that day I had an allergy test – 24 pricks on my arms – which confirmed what I thought, that my sinus problems aren’t allergy-related at all. When the receptionist gave me the bill for the test (525 lei, equivalent to NZ$190 or £90), my jaw literally dropped. Now that allergies are out, I’m free to get my prescription for various pills and sprays, which I’ll take until Christmas.

I had a good chat last night with Dad. I usually do have good chats with him. His days are dominated by bus trips to see his sister at a private hospital in Cambridge. He’s able to take advantage of the £2 bus fares that the government introduced earlier in the year, and which I also benefited from in June. My aunt has ups and downs but the trend is clear. She isn’t going to bother with chemo now. In fact she told him that she’d like to pop off in her sleep, sooner rather than later. I spoke to my brother on Friday, and we both sort of agreed that it might be better not to see her. In July he brought the little one over to her place, and it was the highlight of her year. She called me immediately afterwards, and the way she spoke about meeting her great-nephew was quite touching. Perhaps it’s best to leave it at that.

Family - Language teaching - Life :)

Mess and a miracle

October 12, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

I’m now into year eight of my time in Romania. Who would have thought? Since I last wrote, I’ve felt tired and overwhelmed. I’ve coped OK with work, which I’ve had plenty of, but otherwise it’s all been a mess. Literally, in the case of this flat. The living room is a pigsty, to use Mum’s usual term for the bedroom I shared with my brother until I was 13. The central heating saga drags on and on, and I’ve now gone two weeks without hot water. We’re still getting unseasonably warm weather, but the temperature will soon plummet. On Tuesday I simply lost it as my six lessons were punctured by messages and phone calls about gas meters and plug points and contacting this or that person.

Then yesterday something miraculous happened. The Barclays money turned up in my Romanian account – the one I set up last month that’s denominated in pounds. I checked it at around 3pm; it had gone in at 11 that morning. It was all so highly unlikely – Barclays hadn’t even told me that they’d made the payment – but there it was. I’ll now have to decide whether to accept their derisory £200 “compensation” offer or try for more. Fight for something like I feel I deserve (at least one more zero), or just get on with my life. It isn’t an easy decision.

Dad landed in the UK two days ago. Mum emailed me last night to say that he’d seen his sister. She’s in a bad way – if not quite as bad as we thought last week – and won’t be having chemo. I might still decide to go over there before Dad goes back to New Zealand in early November.

The horrific terrorist attack by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent retaliation have unsurprisingly dominated the news. I’ve been watching YouTube videos, trying to understand the complex history of the region. The more I see, the notion that there are good guys in the conflict becomes more ridiculous.

New Zealand’s election is a day and a bit away. From the opinion polls and the general sentiment I got when I was over there, I expect National to win, although there are a few wrinkles involving this weird party run by a guy with more than a few wrinkles himself. They just can’t get rid of him. In the short term, a change of government is probably for the best, but in the medium term I can’t see it making much difference. I can’t see National doing much to alleviate the housing crisis, for instance. They might even worsen it. After a period of calm on the election front, I can look forward to several in succession. In Romania, the presidential, parliamentary and local elections are out of sync, but next year the stars will align and we’ll be treated to all three. Then of course next November will be the biggie – the one that puts the future of democracy fully on the line.

Last weekend I only had one tennis session. Just as well – I was so tired. After my lessons on Saturday, I spent most of the two-hour session playing with three members of the same family who were all at a good level. During the points I managed surprisingly well, but in between them I had to drag myself around the court. On Sunday I met Mark in Dumbrăvița, and then Dorothy at Scârț, a bar which has a museum of communism downstairs. I really just wanted to be alone, not just on that day but for several more. No instant messages. No risk of having to communicate. Then I had a Skype chat with my cousin in New York state. He said that Joe Biden is doing a better job than most people realise, and that was my feeling too. We talked about our parents – his father had slowed down noticeably when I saw him recently.

I’m now off to the other side of town for a lesson with that very shallow 16-year-old I mentioned last time. Should be fun.

Family - Language teaching - Life :)

My aunt: not looking good

October 7, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

This morning my brother called me to say that our aunt now had a chest infection. He forwarded me an email from her consultant (third-hand by this point) who said among other things that getting her home is “looking increasingly unrealistic”. (I recently bemoaned people’s poor writing skills. This consultant’s writing, on such a delicate matter, was exemplary.) Dad arrives at Stansted on Tuesday afternoon. She might not even make it that far.

Last night I had a cyst (a double cyst, as it turned out) removed from my back. It had been there for around six months without causing any pain. My usual doctor assured me that it was benign back in July. The private clinic was state of the art, with signs everywhere written in Trajan, the all-caps font that has been used in hundreds of big-budget movie posters. Some of these signs were in a sort of English: “German rigurosity with Latin spirit”. The font almost fooled me into thinking that “rigurosity” was a real word. There were forms to fill in, as always. I didn’t know if my health insurance would cover me; I guessed not. The surgeon led me into his room. He had colossal biceps, one of which was tattooed. He clearly had a good command of English but we conducted the whole thing in Romanian. I lay down on my tummy, he gave me an anaesthetic, and then 10 or 15 minutes later it was gata – done, bits of cyst lying on a tray. The admin stuff that followed took longer to resolve than the excision. In a twist on the millennium bug, their system calculated my age as minus 57 years old, and correcting that absurdity took considerable faff. Everybody in Romania has an ID card with a long number that incorporates their date of birth as six digits – mine is 20 04 80. (Can you see where this is going?) The first digit of your ID number is 1 for male and 2 for female, if you were born in 19-something. Those born in 20-something get a 3 (male) or 4 (female) instead. But foreigners like me are classed as a different species so we get something else at the beginning; my number starts with a 7. It seems their system included a simple code – “ID number starts with 3 or above means you were born in 20-something, otherwise it’s 19-something”. As for my insurance, it paid for the consultation, but not the surgery (the bulk of the cost) or the painkillers. It total I had to pay just over 900 lei (NZ$325 or £160). I’ll have to go back in two weeks to get the stitches removed. Before that I’ve got an allergy test for my long-term sinus problem.

This morning I had another look at that bike in the barn in Dumbrăvița. I liked it and it seemed to ride well, but after last night I felt strapped for cash. The asking price was 1250 lei, I offered 1000, the guy wouldn’t budge one leu, and I rode away on my rather more rickety machine. My brother suggested I should, you know, get a bike from an actual shop and not some dodgy barn, and he’s probably right.

I had a bizarre online lesson yesterday with a girl about to turn 16. It was only our second session; last week I met her face-to-face in their very smart place in the north of the city. Her father is a doctor, her mother a dentist; by Romanian standards her family is swimming in money. When I asked her in our first meeting if she’d travelled much, she reeled off seven European cities. Marseille was dirty, Berlin was a bit boring, Barcelona was great. I assumed she meant she’d been to these places over a period of years, but she then clarified that she visited them all just this summer. Crikey. Zanzibar was last summer, and of course she’d been to Dubai. I spent some time going over the grammar rules of talking about travel experiences. Yesterday’s meeting was just weird. She’d just been to tennis training. She didn’t need to tell me where; it’s where all Timișoara’s haves go. Are you a good tennis player? “Yes, I am.” Right. I decided to ask her some discussion questions from my “teenagers” topic. That didn’t work well, because she shut the door on me at every turn. Look, this is like a game of tennis. If you don’t hit the ball back to me, we won’t get far. I actually said that. Next she made a series of arrogant statements with little to back them up – it was hard not to take the piss – then she revealed that she spends 500 lei per week at the mall and is currently pining for an iPhone 15, priced at around 4000. It isn’t your fault that you’re this shallow, I thought. Switching the topic to “Have you ever…?” was a good move on my part, because it then became all about her.

I might be making a trip to the UK before too long.

Language teaching - Life :) - Maths teaching - Tennis

A typical Saturday

October 2, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

All of a sudden we’ve hit the last quarter of the year, the one that includes – gasp! – Christmas. It also includes sodding Halloween, which I’ll soon be forced to discuss in my lessons with kids. I don’t have a problem with Halloween in itself, but in Romania we could do without yet another American import.

Yesterday I had five hours of lessons in Dumbrăvița. I’d planned to head to the English Conversation Club after that, then onwards to tennis. Despite taking ages to organise myself I left in plenty of time, but then I realised I’d forgotten something important and had to come back for it. That meant I had time to grab some biscuits from Kaufland to take to the club, but not enough time to also drink a coffee from the vending machine. Normally I have two coffees on a Saturday morning in quick succession, one from Kaufland and another from Matei’s dad. Yesterday though Matei’s parents were out, so I ended up going without coffee altogether. I did quadratic graphs with Matei, interspersed with random chat, then I dashed back to Kaufland for a mochaccino and a quick bite to eat before my two hours with Octavian.

I worry that 16-year-old Octavian’s rather non-native-sounding accent may now be set in stone. Is that my fault? In part, probably yes. Or more accurately, when I started teaching him six years ago (!) I was too inexperienced to know I needed to focus more on that aspect of his English. He also still makes a lot of word order mistakes – We went yesterday fishing – which I can’t beat out of him however hard I try. It’s all a little frustrating given how good his reading and listening are. Octavian made two big overseas trips over the summer. He spent four weeks in the UK, then another three with his family in the US – they visited New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and probably somewhere else I’ve missed out. I chatted to his mum about their US trip and she was shocked at the extreme poverty in so many parts of the country and the depressing lack of nutritious food. She was glad to get back home. Octavian enjoyed it more I think. As for the UK, he said that his favourite place was Norwich. How interesting. I only visited twice and liked it a lot, too. The market with brightly-coloured covers over rows of stalls, all on a slope, was gritty and crazy at the same time. Best of all I liked Norwich’s position, away from the hopelessly congested area surrounding London. The air was noticeably different there. The second time I visited Norwich was for a job interview in 2002. It was at Norwich Union, an insurance company that now goes by Aviva in all its dismal symmetry. The firm was (and presumably still is) big – its offices occupied several edifices in a row on one street. I enjoyed the train journey from Cambridge to Norwich and the lunch I got from the market. In between was the interview which wasn’t so great, in part because I didn’t really know what the job was about.

When I was done with Octavian – we worked on an IGCSE reading paper – I had an hour with his six-year-old sister. You need to bring a lot of ammo to a lesson with someone that young. A colour-the-fish sheet might last five minutes if you’re lucky. While I was in the lesson, Dorothy messaged me to say that the English Conversation Club was off (yet again) because people had decided they had better things to do. Post-Covid everybody seems to have better things to do all the time. Not too far away is a place that sells second-hand bikes, and the cancellation allowed me to pop in there. Only two were for sale – apparently it’s the end of the season. I liked the look of one of them which was going for 1250 lei (£220 or NZ$450) so I may go back there. I then had time to kill before tennis. I went past the wooden-stick-making factory for the first time since I gave those lessons there years ago. The factory is still there, but so too is one of the many small malls that have sprung up around the city in the last five years.

Tennis. Singles again, with the same guy. From 2-2 and 15-40 on my serve I won the first set 6-2, despite not serving very well (with the exception perhaps of those two points in the fifth game). In the second set I led 2-1 but then he hit one of those purple patches to win the next four games. I closed to only 5-4 down and played a scrambling point to reach 30-all on his serve in game ten. I then made errors on both the next two points; it was disappointing to concede the set in that manner. What we managed of the third set (before darkness fell) wasn’t easy for me, but I’d built a 4-1 lead by the end. In theory you should only lose one time in nine with that lead, assuming both players are of equal skill and there’s no advantage in serving.
Update: We played again this evening. We had the court booked for an hour, which only gave us time to play one long set after we warmed up. We went to a tie-break which I lost 7-4. I thought I played fine but he’s such a tough opponent when he’s on form. I look back at the people I played in that season in Wellington and all the passing winners I was able to make. No such luck with this demon at the net. The key game I felt was on his serve at 4-4. I led 0-30, he hit the baseline to win the next point, then played an extraordinary point that I thought I’d won several times, then found the baseline once again to move to 40-30. I lost the game five points later without doing a heck of a lot wrong. If he keeps this up I’ll really have my hands full. If the weather isn’t too hot, he ties his King Charles spaniel to a post while we play, but he’s now been told not to bring it (her) anymore. We laughed about how life gets harder with each passing week as barriers are continually put up around us. Next to us were some girls playing volleyball. One of them wore a top that read “Scorpions 1993 World Tour”. She wouldn’t have been born for another decade and a half. I’ve mentioned this phenomenon – that’s what it is – on here before.

I now have no hot water. That’s the next stage in the long and circuitous process of getting my central heating set up.

Someone trying to sell a saxophone (and other instruments) at the market last Sunday

Some quite beautiful baroque music on the Bega last night

Language teaching - Life :) - Tennis

Why am I so damn tired all the damn time?

September 25, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

It was amazing in New Zealand. I’d wake up after a good night’s sleep (or even after a less than stellar night’s sleep) and feel refreshed. Now I’m back in Romania and I’m constantly tired. Yesterday I had to apologise for yawning in a lesson. I’ve mentioned this and two people have given the polluted city air as a reason. Could it also be the warm weather here? (Yesterday we broke 30.) What about the screen time? Or maybe it’s all the talking I have to do in my job? But back in 2018, say, I had busy work weeks one after another – often having to yap away for hours on end – and didn’t feel nearly as tired as I do now. Perhaps I was still energised by the relative newness and excitement of my lifestyle change. This fatigue seems to have coincided with my move to this apartment 16 months ago, so maybe it’s something about being here. Though my sinus problem doesn’t help, I can’t really blame that because it didn’t exactly go away in NZ where I felt much less tired.

On Friday I took a look at a car – a 19-year-old Dacia – just off Piața Bălcescu. It was just after lunchtime and the square was chocka. That made up my mind for me. There’s no way I could handle the stress of a car right now. For getting around the city, a car would be more of a burden than anything – and just think of all the added bureaucracy – so I’m going to wait until March before looking again. I should be pursuing two wheels rather than four; my latest old city bike has just about had it. The uneven roads and paths in Timișoara require something more robust, and it is slightly ludicrous that my main mode of transport – the thing I rely heavily on – dates from when I was in primary school.

Tennis. I was back on the court this weekend for two sessions of singles against my usual opponent. When you’re fatigued, singles will make you feel horribly exposed. Yesterday, something wasn’t right with the guy at the other end, and I led 6-0 6-2 2-2 when our time ran out, tiredness and all. Tonight though was an entirely different matter. I won two close games to start, then I lost seven games out of eight as he hit a deep purple patch that left me floundering despite not even playing that badly. From 3-6 0-1 he went off the boil just enough, and I came back to win the second set 6-2, at which point the heavens opened.

Lessons have been interesting. Many of my students have looked at my photos from NZ and expressed disappointment at the lack of pythons and crocodiles and spiders as big as your hand. A parrot? Telling them it can rip your wiper blades off does little to impress them. There’s also been a general sense of bafflement at the whole snow thing. Most Romanians simply don’t get that there’s another side of the world where seasons are reversed. One student asked, “Are they aware that we have Christmas in winter?” Oh yes, and most of their Christmas cards even depict winter scenes. That made him even more confused. “What about daylight savings?” Yep. I resisted the temptation to talk about Australia’s time zones that include half-hour offsets and some-do-some-don’t daylight savings.

Yesterday I worked with the top-2%-ers in Dumbrăvița. First I had two hours of maths with Matei who spent time with a Spanish family in Toledo over the summer, just like I did in France at a similar age. His family now have a conservatory which they’ve filled with exotic plants. Matei has got himself a record player and he played a few bars of Kanye West for me. I’d like a record player too (they call it a pick-up here), though certainly not to play even one bar of Kanye West. After Matei, I had two hours with Octavian who spent seven weeks combined in the UK and America (his pronunciation hadn’t improved as much as I’d hoped), then my first one-hour session with his six-year-old sister who knew more than I bargained for.

Family - Life :) - New Zealand

More from my aunt, and a rocky time in Geraldine

September 20, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

A beautiful autumn day here, though the forecast 28 degrees is in fact a degree less than Mum and Dad’s unseasonably warm Wednesday. This afternoon I’ve got my appointment with the ENT specialist. Maybe he can crack the problem of my sinuses – so far nobody else has. I must remember to bring all my scans and reports and what have you. I’m over my cold now, so that’s something. Last night I saw the doctor who told me who to see to get the cyst removed from my back.

A pretty hefty earthquake shook Geraldine this morning (NZ time). It was a long, rolling shake that measured 6.0. My parents didn’t feel a thing because they were in a car. It was funny to see Geraldine plastered all over the front page of Stuff.

My aunt is going to get a course of chemo that (in my cousin’s words) won’t be too invasive and might give her another few months. In hospital she’s been on morphine and antibiotics for her crippling pain caused by an infection. She’s also gone cold turkey on booze and cigarettes – that can’t have been much fun. So Dad has booked a trip over there, leaving on 9th October and coming back five weeks later. I might even make a visit. Thankfully his itinerary won’t be as onerous as mine – no clapped-out trains, and instead a 16-hour leg (!) on an Emirates A380. My fun and games in the mysterious depths of Hungary would just about kill him. My cousin has been very good to my aunt while she’s been in hospital, but she’s never had much time for him – her interest ended when he was shipped off to boarding school at the age of eight (!?).

Here’s an interesting YouTube video by a bloke called Noel Philips, who quit his IT job to travel and make videos about travelling, mostly on unusual routes and older planes. He even has a private pilot’s licence. In this video, he was daring enough to fly on an Indonesian airline with a one-star safety rating, out of a maximum of seven. Fascinating to watch – the airports reminded me of travelling through Indonesia as a kid.

I still don’t really know what’s happening with my central heating.

Update: I saw the ENT guy. When I entered his clinic, I saw my name hand-written in his big book, with the number 969 alongside it. He was happy to do everything in English. Normally I hate that, but when it’s my health I’m fine with it. His English was very good, apart from the time he pushed probes up both my nostrils and told me it wasn’t painy. Sorry, but it bloody is painy. He said that surgery won’t do me any good, then asked me to take an allergy test (the last time I got tested for allergies was in 2017) before taking a spray twice a day and a pill only in the evening. I’ll have to take these drugs for two months, then after seeing him again I might end up taking them for life. So that’s where I am with that.

Family - Life :)

Landed with a bump

September 16, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

On Tuesday, at about the time I met the English lady Dorothy in town, I realised I’d picked up something on the plane. Over 300 people crammed in a tube – it’s not that big a surprise. For the last three days I’ve had a mild fever, a sore throat, and very little energy. And it had all started so well, too. Early-morning visits to the market, meeting my neighbours upstairs, and resuming lessons with the twins who were bronzed after their beach holiday in Greece. It was all rather nice. (That’s the single pair of twins. I might not see the four twins again – their mother said she wants them to concentrate on Romanian and maths.)

This illness wouldn’t be so bad if (a) I didn’t have the constant sinus business too, and (b) I didn’t have life admin chucked at me. More Barclays stuff for a start. I’d given them my New Zealand account to pay the funds into, but the lady on the phone said that living in Romania (not NZ) had caused their system to spit the dummy and send me a cheque instead. I never received this cheque, and at any rate it’s five years since you could cash foreign cheques in Romania. On Wednesday I opened an account denominated in pounds at my Romanian bank so I could receive the funds here without getting hit for who knows what fees, then sent Barclays my latest payment instructions. With the way I was feeling, this was a major effort. Now I’ve got the central heating to deal with. First thing this morning, Viorica (who lives on the top floor) went with me to the energy provider, to help me set up a contract with them. She must sense my cluelessness (and lack of desire to get a clue) about Romania’s bureaucratic systems; she’s been very helpful. I told her I was operating on an even slower mode than usual. At least I figured out how to make the 8am appointment on their automated system. The office had red furniture and red notices everywhere, there were red digits to tell us our position in the queue (at the front, thankfully), and the young woman at the desk wore a red top and had her nails painted red. I got the contract set up, but there are several more hoops to jump through. The next step might be getting the meters or ceasuri (literally ‘clocks’) installed, but it could easily be something else.

Today is my nephew’s first birthday. Now that has gone by quickly. They’re putting on a party for him tomorrow. Let’s hope they give him a celebration he’ll never forget. I’ll call my brother tonight. As for my aunt, her one-night stay in hospital has turned into six or seven and nobody knows what’s going on.

Family - Life :) - New Zealand - Photos

New Zealand: I like what I see

September 6, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

Sadly it’s all coming to an abrupt end. Dad’s got his Google gadget gizmo playing sixties music (they’ve turned the TV off – will wonders never cease?), and appropriately the deceptively complex Here Comes the Sun is playing as I write this. Spring has sprung; I’m seeing the daffodils coming out for the second time this year. Today it hit 19 degrees here, and at 1pm one of the famous nor’westers whipped through. Now we’ve got the Beach Boys – Surfin’ USA.

My brother called us this evening, just after we’d finished our chicken and vegetable pie. My nephew – nine days shy of his first birthday – was in a happy mood, as he is pretty much always. He’s a lovely little boy, it must be said. I’ve hardly ever seen him cry. He’s benefited hugely from all the time his parents have spent with him. My sister-in-law goes back to work soon – she’d rather not have to.

This afternoon Mum took me over to my aunt and uncle in Woodbury. It looks like they might pull the plug on their rhododendron nursery. I’m amazed they’ve kept it going for so long. We were there for two hours, most of which were taken up by gossip about various local no-hopers (quoting verbatim here) getting handouts they obviously don’t deserve. Before that, I got some life admin done involving phone calls to RaboBank (I had a high three-figure amount in an account that they’d closed) and the IRD, while Mum and Dad were getting haircuts and doing the laundry in Temuka, and sorting out a new kitchen in Washdyke. I also watched an incredible women’s doubles match at the US Open. At the end of a topsy-turvy third set, the American pairing of Taylor Townsend and Leylah Fernandez raced to a 7-2 lead in the first-to-ten tie-break before Gaby Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe won 10-8. I didn’t know at the time that Routliffe played for New Zealand. I also saw Sorana Cîrstea’s quarter-final with Karolina Muchova. The Czech had too much for the Romanian, who had done extremely well to get that far. There was one crazy game in the middle of the first set – it went ten deuces, and Cîrstea had nine break points – which could have sent the match on a different path had it gone the Romanian’s way.

Yesterday both Mum and I visited the IRD in Timaru. She’d been faffing around for many angst-ridden hours on the IRD site using her four-inch phone, and I also had a problem to resolve with non-resident tax, so I persuaded her to actually visit the office which is located just off the main street of Timaru and open 5½ hours a day, three days a week. Nowhere near enough. We arrived before it opened and were first in the queue. The two women we dealt with at the desk were very pleasant, although Mum was still effing and blinding because she had to pay provisional tax.

When we got back from Timaru I had a sudden urge to clear the cobwebs. Too much sitting around, either in a car, or worse, in my parents’ living room. So I took Dad’s rather good bike out and went all the way to the huts at Milford, 24 km away, and obviously all the way back. I’d packed a flask of tea. On those last few kilometres I was saddle-sore and ravenous. Mum was visibly concerned by the time I got back.

After a month in this neck of the woods, I like what I’ve seen. Could I move back here to live? Probably, yes, if I could somehow keep teaching and find a suitable place. It would need to be out of curtain-twitching range. As beautiful as Waikouaiti is, I’d find it hard to hide there. Dunedin would suit me I think, but could I afford it? These are things to consider in the medium term.

It’ll be a sad moment tomorrow as my parents drop me off at the Jucy Snooze place next to the airport where I’ll doss down for a few hours before my 6am flight – an early start to a long ordeal. Saying goodbye to Mum is the hardest. With Dad he’s still sort of there on the end of an email or a video chat. Without being able to hug Mum and smell her perfume – the same one she’s worn since I was a kid, at least – it’s really not the same.

I didn’t immediately parse this name correctly. Mr and Mrs Duzu? Doesn’t sound Scottish or Irish. Ah, *does us*.

Milford yesterday. No whitebaiters that I could see. The names of the huts/baches are always interesting. There used to be a *Passing Wind*.

Family - Life :) - New Zealand - Photos

Let’s talk about money

August 24, 2023

by plutoman 0 Comments

As a boy I was often blown away by how casually my parents talked about sums in the thousands. “A thousand to you is worth a normal pound to me!” I remember saying. Now I’m in my forties and I’ve come a long way: two of those three zeros have been wiped out – there’s just a ten-to-one relationship between my parents’ financial world and mine. Their financial position hasn’t really sunk in to them. When Mum complained that politicians give handouts to both the rich and the poor and don’t care about those in the middle – like them – I just about spat out my tea. Just yesterday, Dad began a sentence with “If I was a millionaire”. Had he suddenly switched to the Kuwaiti dinar, worth NZ$5.42 or £2.55? I wonder how much their vast wealth – let’s be frank – has been a demotivator to me, or at least a motivator to think, bugger this and exit the world of real estate offices on every corner. It’s also been a source of some upset for my brother. Mum and Dad are seriously giving the cost of flights as a reason not to see their grandson? Gimme a break. They could easily fly business class. (Seriously, how many more return trips to the UK will they make? Four or so? It would be worthwhile use of their money.)

Mum and Dad don’t agree on everything, but when it comes to their finances they’re a team, steadfast in defence. Five-nil up with five minutes to go, the gleaming silverware long since secured, still keen to score another goal if the chance presents itself, but desperate not to concede. Their renovation has cut out a lot of their cooking facilities and made dinnertime a stressful part of the day. Mum is a good cook and rustles up something tasty every night, but there’s always tension in the air. (Dad said he’d like to help but she won’t let him.) I suggested that twice a week they should eat out or get takeaways, just to lighten the load during the renovation. Eighty bucks a week for the two of them; it would surely be worth it. They thought I was mad. There aren’t many restaurants in Geraldine, they said, and the cost! Since I arrived 17 days ago, we’ve had two takeaways – sausage and chips on the day I arrived, and fish and chips from Palmerston – and had two coffees out, including at Mitre 10 in Timaru yesterday.

A lot of their frugality has rubbed off on me. My brother and I were hardly spoilt as kids, with the exception of travel, although even that was mostly on the cheap. We had little “stuff”, and basically no expensive stuff, but never felt deprived. Big-brand clothes and shoes were unthinkable. Even at ten, I knew that £60 Nike or Reebok trainers were a huge waste of money, and didn’t demand them. Between 24 and 28 I got regular pay rises and spent a bit more freely, but when my career soon went rapidly south and I took out a mortgage I tightened my belt considerably. I find proper eating out – at actual restaurants – quite stressful and tend to avoid it. It can take ages to get served – especially in Romania – and there’s the whole issue of tipping (I’m ideologically opposed to the concept) which, alarmingly, is starting to become a thing even in New Zealand. When I lived in Wellington there was a huge choice of “semi-restaurants” – Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese – that served yummy, inexpensive food in a virtually stress-free environment. I miss those. But if I had my parents’ riches, hopefully I’d check out those real restaurants a little more often.