by This morning I had my back-to-back lessons with the brother and sister in Dumbrăvița. On the way I got a coffee from the little shop with benches outside. On one of the benches was a slightly darker-skinned man in his twenties with his feet on the bench, and on another bench was a man of about sixty who didn’t look particularly healthy. The older man didn’t like the fact that the young guy had his feet on the bench, and told him, “This is Romania! We don’t put dirty shoes on benches. Go back to Turkey, you fucking immigrant!” The young man said only a few words and otherwise ignored him; he was soon in the middle of a voice call.
As for the lessons, well this time I started with the boy. He’s hard work, and he really doesn’t want to be there, but it’s only for one hour and he seems to find the motor racing board game at least somewhat engaging. It was a relief though when he was out of the way and I got to see his big sister who’s much less of a handful.
I’ve watched some extraordinary sport – both tennis and baseball – in the last few days. This morning I turned on the TV – it was well past midnight in New York, but you never know – and lo and behold, Nadal and Thiem were still out there. They were out there for a good deal longer too, Nadal squeezing through in a fifth-set tie-break, a few minutes past 2am local time. There was incredible shotmaking under pressure from both men. I only just managed to see the finale before heading to Dumbrăvița. Then this evening, after a high-intensity grammar workout with two beginner students, I saw that the Red Sox were down 7-1 in Atlanta, heading into the final two innings. In other words they’d all but had it, but hey, this is the 2018 Boston team and you just never know, and over the next 90 minutes I saw the most incredible comeback.
