by My parents called me early this morning. I couldn’t talk for more than a minute because I wanted to be at ANAF when it opened at 8:30. I’d slept badly. The first time (of many) I woke up, there was half the night left. The next time there was half of that left, and so on, until I was down to just minutes. I was frightened of what might await me. This morning it was bucketing down, so I had to choose either to drive, which would have meant finding somewhere to park in the middle of town and dealing with parking apps and who knows what else, or taking the bike and getting wet. I choose the latter. Getting soaked wouldn’t break my brain.
ANAF’s Google star rating is in the sewer. When you get there you can see why. But the people I dealt with were mostly pretty helpful on this occasion. It was less busy than usual; perhaps the bad weather had kept people away. I’d assumed I had to pay an income tax bill, but it was in fact a charge for public healthcare – they’d supposedly billed me in May, but I can’t remember getting anything from them then. To my relief it wasn’t double that figure of 2257 lei. I then visited the bank, agreed to pay, and they unblocked my account in short order. I then went back to ANAF to pay interest that had accrued since May. With various bank charges as well, I ended up coughing up 2416 lei in total. But at least I got it sorted. My Revolut account is still blocked though.
When I got back home I called Mum and Dad back. They’d been in Moeraki for four days. Mum looked shattered. They’d done work on the place down there – Dad mentioned the roof – in preparation for (at some point soon) putting it on the market. A shame – it’s a lovely spot and it’s done wonders for relieving Mum’s stress – but they’ve now realised that all these properties have become a huge burden. I am worried about Mum; it all seems to be taking a physical toll on her. We talked about how complicated life has become. None of us are really coping.
A bit later I took my bike to the shop to get a new front brake fitted as well as a new mudguard. I’d been meaning to get the brake done for a while, but it took this morning in the rain (it was actually rather dangerous) to do it. That meant a long walk back, partly through my old stomping ground when everything was still exciting. And different. And cheap.
Last night I spoke to my brother, but not for long. He was two hours into a five-hour power cut and didn’t want to drain his phone battery. A storm named Boelo (pronounced boo-lo) battered large parts of the UK and claimed two lives.
There were two big elections overnight. One was very close to home in Serbia (which I’m even thinking of visiting this coming weekend) and guess what, Aleksandar Vučić (pro-Putin, pro-Trump, and basically a dictator) was defeated by a student movement of all things, and pretty decisively too, despite violence and intimidation. That’s great news. The worry is that the student group is currently leaderless; I just hope it holds. The student coalition isn’t actually made up of students, but instead some very clever young people, most of whom have PhDs. It came about following the railway station collapse in Novi Sad two years ago. I visited that city shortly after. Then Lula beat Bolsonaro Junior in Brazil in a bit of a shock. Bolsonaro is pro-Trump and anti-environment, so that’s got to be good news too. A win for the Amazon. The Israeli election is tomorrow, then the US midterms next week. And then New Zealand have theirs on 7th November.
Five sessions tomorrow including with a new kid. I hope to fit in a swim as well.
