by I went to that music festival on Sunday. Before I sat down I ordered a frigărui, which is basically a kebab. I thought it was damn good value at only 7 lei, but I didn’t read the sign properly. Entirely my fault. It was 7 lei per 100 grams, and my kebab weighed in at 300. For 21 lei it was nothing amazing. The Indonesians had just started getting into their stride when the rain came down. Nothing too bad at first, but after an hour or so a huge thunderstorm struck, and a steady but manageable drip became a deluge. One of the best things about where I live is the close proximity to just about everything, and I was able to run home before getting absolutely drenched.
I’ve been having two lessons a week with Octavian. Except last week, when he went with his family to a town in Croatia by the name of Pula. In Romanian, pula means “dick”. He thought this was pretty hilarious. At the end of each session, we (or rather Octavian – I take a back seat) have been playing a nineties adventure computer game called Monkey Island. It’s a very cleverly designed game: so much time and creativity must have gone into it. You could easily while away hours playing it.
We’re down to four in both the men’s and women’s. Simona Halep’s consistency told in the end against Zhang Shuai as she clawed her way out of a deep hole in the first set. Simona plays Elina Svitolina in the semi-finals very shortly. Barbora Strycova fully deserved her place in the semis against Serena Williams, who had a tough time against Alison Riske. (At 3-all in the final set, I thought Riske might pull off the upset, mainly because of Serena’s movement or lack of it.)
In yesterday’s men’s quarter-finals, I was most interested in the match that didn’t feature any of the big three. I didn’t really mind whether Roberto Bautista Agut or Guido Pella made it through, but I read that Bautista Agut’s mother died recently, and he’d reached the last 16 of grand slams many, many times previously without taking the next step or two, so I was happy he won. It was a good match. The other three matches all followed the same, rather predictable, pattern. Djokovic went down 4-3 with a break against Goffin but hardly dropped another game all match after that; Nadal only just scraped the first set 7-5 against Querrey (who is very strong on grass) but then only lost four more games; and Federer looked out of sorts to begin with and lost the opening set to Nishikori, but powered to a fairly comfortable four-set win. We’ve now got Federer against Nadal in a semi-final, eleven years on from perhaps the greatest match of all time. Who would have imagined they’d both still be such superpowers of the game?
I’ve just been on the phone to a lady who wants lessons for her six-year-old boy. I keep getting the little ‘uns at the moment. Yesterday I had my first session with a woman of about 25 who works with two of my other students in the Finance department at the meat processing company. Next week she’ll be bringing her friend.
The temperatures have got a two in front of them, not a three, and that makes life so much more comfortable.
