by It has been a glorious Sunday, with weather I’d describe as just about perfect. This morning I biked to Sânmihaiu Român, a village about 13 km from here but it feels a world away. Typical of a Sunday morning, there was almost nobody around, save those fishing in the Bega. There were plenty of animals though, such as a mother goat with her two kids that could only have been days old. At the village I drank a cheap coffee in the sun, then sat in a park to do some Romanian homework, then rode back. Though my bike is probably 40-odd years old, it has been a godsend. I’m able to get a decent amount of exercise and travel to lessons in a reasonable time. This afternoon I asked the lady at the nearby tennis courts how and when I can play. It isn’t a club as such; I’d need to actually find someone to play with. Not that easy. I’ve suddenly got the urge to play again.
Yesterday I joined S and her friend at a wine-tasting session at The Wine Guy, a small wine store near Piața Unirii. We spent 3½ hours there, almost half of which involved listening to the Wine Guy himself talk (in Romanian, so a good lesson for me) about the way wines are produced and classified, the process of becoming a sommelier, the varieties produced in Romania, and so on. Finally we got down to business, and tried out seven wines in all: three whites, one rosé, and three reds. We swilled them around, sniffed them, and eventually tasted them. People came up with all sorts of exotic aromas that they could supposedly discern, but to me it was a bit like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Still, it was interesting, and I realised how much we neglect our sense of smell in 21st-century life. Wine tasting seems enormously subjective to me, and at times I was pining for a ten-dollar bottle of full-bodied Pinot Noir, instead of the far pricier stuff we tried last night with their subtle notes of raspberry or caramel. This was only the third time I’d done wine tasting; my best experience by far was in Birmingham back in 2001, when our session was hosted by Oz Clarke of Food and Drink fame. On that occasion there was no messing about as we drank New World wines in proper quantities.
The topic of wine came up twice in lessons last week. Once because cork oak trees happened to be the subject of an IELTS reading exercise; the other time was in my Romanian lesson when I told my teacher I couldn’t for the life of me pronounce the first word of the popular Romanian wine Tămâioasă Românească. It’s a beautiful-looking word, but the pile-up of vowels in Tămâioasă requires a form of mouth gymnastics for me. She then said she struggled with pile-ups of consonants in English, and wondered why the difference. I told her that English was considerably more consonant-heavy than Romanian (at least 60% consonants, as opposed to around 50% or perhaps a shade over), she then looked at a line of text in both languages, and saw what I meant.
The New Zealand government’s response to the Christchurch shooting, in particular that of Jacinda Ardern, has been very impressive. Decisive, compassionate, genuine, in touch with the people, everything you could want. Whatever your political persuasion, New Zealand’s 21st-century prime ministers have all been very good adverts for the country. The leadership shown in Britain, of course, has been the exact opposite. There were several “We want Jacinda” placards at yesterday’s anti-Brexit march. I watched Theresa May’s brief speech from Downing Street on Wednesday night and it all felt so wooden. As Dad said, it was typically British. I might be more inclined to say English. Regarding the shooting, when the subject came up in conversation last week, my student made an inadvertent joke. When I mentioned that the shooting was in Christchurch, he said, no it didn’t take place in Christchurch, it happened in a mosque.
Albert, my 7½-year-old student, is certainly a live wire. Last time I spoke to Mum, I asked her how on earth she managed with thirty kids of that age, five days a week. Albert is a nice kid, although games present a problem, because he isn’t quite mature enough to realise that you can’t always win.
Scrabble. You meet all kinds of weird and wonderful people on ISC, the Romanian-based site I play on. A little while ago I played an 80-year-old woman from Sydney who talked very positively about the tournament scene down under. She mentioned somebody by the name of Bob, assuming I knew who he was. Excuse my ignorance, but who’s Bob? Apparently she was referring to Bob Jackman, a veteran Scrabble expert. I’ve also now played three games with a semi-retired actuary. Last weekend I played a lady from Scotland who had played 31,000 games. She was bemoaning her bad luck and lack of improvement. Maybe it would help if you took a break. She then mentioned that she suffered from ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome, and often struggles to leave the house. Yesterday I had perhaps my worst experience to date. My English opponent’s notes consisted of screeds of information about all sorts of things that piss him off about all sorts of players. I quite often see this (seriously, get a life people), and it rings alarm bells. Anyway, we play, he starts, I reply with a bingo, and then play short words on my next three turns because I can’t see any other options. Then he writes “you won’t be playing with me again”. I ask why, but a message flashes up on my screen to say my opponent has already added me to his no-play list, which means no-speak, too. Lovely. He then plays an obscure nine-letter bingo (a rarity which I would always congratulate, but of course I’m on his no-speak list) and I fall behind. Late in the game I find another bingo and lose by a single point, not that I particularly care by then. Perhaps that’s his tactic all along. Unsettle people by being an arsehole, so they no longer care about winning. To me it’s baffling.
I hope this fantastic weather continues.
