by Next week I could have over 30 hours of lessons, and that’s without that young couple with whom I had 12 hours a week until just before Christmas. They said that they’d be back shortly after 2nd February, when their exam session finishes. In other words, I face the imminent prospect of being totally knackered.
My travel companions from four months ago have sent me (as a present) a quite wonderful scrapbook of our trip, full of photos and diary entries. It must have taken several hours to put together. So many wonderful little things happened; I’m so glad that someone had the presence of mind to record them. I can’t believe how much I’d forgotten, like the time the car-hire man told me to maintain a good distance from the vehicle in front because the brakes might not be up to it, or the rubbery omelettes we had for breakfast, or the huge wedding party, out of the blue, at 8pm in a primitive village. And of course, just the wonderful scenery, pretty much wherever we went.
Twelve hours from now, another big opportunity to snatch her maiden grand slam will come Simona Halep’s way. I only saw her semi-final with Angelique Kerber from 2-2 in the final set because I had a lesson, but I was grateful to see what I did. For me it was literally edge-of-the-seat (and off-the-seat) stuff. Halep played noticeably more aggressively than I’m used to seeing her, and that bodes well for the final. Perhaps the fact that her very participation in the tournament has so often been hanging by a thread will relax her for the final. Wozniacki, her opponent in the final, has had a very precarious path too. In fact the two players have faced a whopping seven match points between them, including five for Simona in two separate matches. I’ll miss most of the final, or perhaps even all of it if it’s a quick one, because I’ll be working.
