Month: April 2025

Family - Language teaching - Other sports - Photos

Wanting to get at the truth

April 7, 2025 by 0 Comments

I tried calling Dad last night. I hoped to get him in the short interval between Mum going to church and him going to Pleasant Point to fly his plane. With the time changes, this meant calling at midnight. I didn’t get a reply; he’d probably already gone to Pleasant Point, meaning that an interval when I can get him on his own simply doesn’t exist, unless it’s too windy for him to fly. (Normally I’d get a chance on a Tuesday when Mum plays golf, but since she got ill she hasn’t been playing.) I wanted to get Dad on his own because the only time I get the proper unspun news on Mum is when she isn’t there.

I called again this morning my time. Mum was clearly much better. Colour had returned to her cheeks. She looked better, in fact, than any time in the last two weeks. This could easily be a false dawn; we’ve had them before. She’s refusing to visit the doctor. I’d now put the chances of seeing them next month at 60%. (God, it’s gone up and down a bit, hasn’t it?) Encouraging, but still far too low to plan road trips or book accommodation or anything crazy like that.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Unusually, I had a long gap between lessons, so I sat in the park in Dumbrăvița – the nice part of Dumbrăvița – and read Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice. A brilliant read. I’d managed to get half-way, then found I couldn’t concentrate, probably because of all the Mum stuff. I’m nearing the end of it now.

On Thursday I had a good lesson with the “I’m bored” girl. I made the whole thing about animals. Unfortunately I can’t do that every time, and anyway after a few sessions of animals she’d get bored again.

Word of the year so far: tariff. A lot of people still don’t know how many Rs and Fs it’s got. Trump’s tariffs (essentially half of the US’s trade deficit with each country, with a minimum of 10%) don’t make any sense and they may well have been whacked out on ChatGPT. But if we didn’t already know, we know now that the old world, the hyper-globalised world of the eighties onwards, is history. By the way, I’d dread to think how much my KiwiSaver has dropped in the last few days.

I’ve been watching the Tour Championship snooker which is being played in Manchester. The final is between John Higgins and Mark Selby. Higgins leads 5-3 in a first-to-ten, though Selby won the last two frames of the afternoon session. Lots of big breaks surrounding one out-of-character safety-heavy frame which Higgins won in 57 minutes. It’s unlikely I’ll see the finish because I have to make an early start in the morning.

Football. Birmingham hammered Barnsley 6-2 yesterday. Shame I didn’t see it. Barnsley had someone sent off in only the third minute, but at half-time it was one apiece. Then in the second half Blues went mad. With seven league games left, Blues now have a quite ludicrous 92 points.

Tulips in the park near the tennis courts on Friday.

A lovely day to be in town. Big spreads, especially in the US dollar rates.

I used to live in the building on the right. A fifth-floor apartment is for sale.

One of many lizards in the botanic park on Friday.

Dumbrăvița yesterday. My brother assures me that these are African geese.

I took this picture, which is on my street, because of the typically Romanian signage.
Family

I probably won’t see them

April 3, 2025 by 0 Comments

She’s still “not right”, whatever that means exactly. She needs to go back to the doctor again, but who knows whether she actually will. From what Dad said in his email, the chances that I’ll see them next month have plummeted to about 40%. I’m sure that Mum would prefer not to make the trip anyway, even if she was perfectly well. I think my percentages have been overestimates all along, for that very reason.

Update: My brother called me shortly after I posted that last paragraph. He’d just spoken to Mum and Dad. Things don’t look great. I’d guess 25% now. He’s resigned to the idea that his kids might never see their paternal grandparents again, and his daughter may never see them at all. It would be so damn difficult and expensive for all four of my brother’s family to make a trip over there, and my parents mightn’t be all that bothered even if they did. I suppose 25% isn’t zero, but they might already have made up their mind weeks ago regardless. And it is weird and concerning that Mum hasn’t discovered the root cause of her problem. The most important thing is Mum’s health, even if the “family political” implications of it are rather upsetting right now.

Family - Life :) - Other sports

Getting Mum unblocked

April 2, 2025 by 0 Comments

Good news from Mum. After a painful day on Sunday that made it likely my parents wouldn’t be flying, she saw the doctor the next day. He said her constipation was a result of her colonography rather than the (still mysterious) underlying issue itself. The doctor gave her a box of sachets, kind of like the ones I put down the bathroom sink when it gets blocked. She took ten (!) of these sachets on one day, and they seem to have unblocked her. Unless something else kicks off, it’s more than likely they’ll make the trip now – I’d put it at something like 85–90%. (It must have been under 50% on Sunday. They were fearing the worst.) They’re due to arrive five weeks from tomorrow.

Around the world and beyond, we’ve had a deadly earthquake in Myanmar, an near-total eclipse, and major political developments such as Marine Le Pen being barred from running in the next French presidential election (for now at least). But as for me, not a lot has happened. The eclipse, which I tried to watch with an eight-year-old girl during our lesson last Saturday, was a damp squib. It all looks pretty normal so far, doesn’t it? And then the came over and that was that. On Sunday I went up and saw Elena, the lady who lives above me. I took Kitty along for the ride. Kitty hasn’t quite been the friend I’d hoped for. She’s just, well, there. And here, and everywhere. I might talk more about her next time.

Last night I watched Birmingham’s match at Bristol Rovers. The first half was great: Blues scored early (a brilliant strike from Keshi Anderson) but Rovers equalised and really dominated the half. They were unlucky not to be ahead at half-time. The second half wasn’t anything like as open. A few minutes from the end, Blues were awarded a soft penalty which Jay Stansfield tucked away, and they snatched a 2-1 win which they hardly deserved. After that result and a 4-1 home win over bottom-placed Shrewsbury last weekend, a colossal points total is still on. I see that Blues have entered a partnership with Birmingham University, my old alma mater. I also noticed the players had “Visit Birmingham” on the lower back of their shirts, before realising it also said “Alabama” in small letters. So they’re palling up with anything called Birmingham, even if it’s 4000-plus miles away. That’s something that their local rivals Aston Villa, far more successful than Blues over the years and with a fancier-sounding name, can’t really do.

One final thing: this morning I got the cazier judiciar which is a document that I’d applied for in early March that should allow me to update my residency permit in time for the upcoming Romanian presidential election.