by I had a lesson this morning with the English teacher who has plans to do the Cambridge exam in April. Those reading comprehension questions. Dammit, they’re hard. Even I was pretty much clueless half the time. You need to be primed for this stuff, and I’m just not. She said she hasn’t given up on me and will come back on Monday.
Yesterday I had a jam-packed day, with nine hours of lessons. I’ve been ticking along OK in recent weeks and months, but how I’ve missed days like that. Biking here, there and everywhere, and back home. Having to think on my feet. Hopefully helping people. And a wad of notes featuring the likes of Ion Luca Caragiale and Nicolae Grigorescu by the end of it. All in all, it’s a pretty bloody awesome feeling. I’m thankful that the snow has so far stayed away – this time last year we were blanketed in the stuff, and I had a hard time staying on my feet, let alone thinking on them.
On Monday morning I listened to the 7am news on the radio. I hadn’t quite woken up properly and they speak pretty damn fast, so all the Romanian politics at the start of the bulletin went over my head. Then I heard Noua Zeelandă and my ears pricked up. There had been a volcanic eruption on White Island less than four hours earlier, and it was obviously serious or else it wouldn’t have made the news in Romania. Apparently, and it makes sense, eruptions of steam (like this) happen without warning, and dozens of tourists were in the firing line. The death toll is currently eight, and sadly more are likely to die of their horrific burns.
The news this week has been crappy all round, with more devastating bushfires in Australia, and a Chilean Hercules crash with 38 people on board. And, though the results aren’t yet in, the UK election.
During the campaign all I’ve seen is Boris. Boris dressed as a milkman. A builder. A baker. A butcher. Probably some other alliterative occupations that for now escape me. Just big, friendly, cuddly Boris, no Priti Patel or Jacob Rees-Mogg. I’ll tune in at midnight to see or hear the exit poll results, but I’m almost resigned to five years of Boris, only fifty more days of Britain in the EU, and as for me, my days in Romania possibly starting to tick down. The polls (on average) point to a 30-seat Tory majority, and FPTP can be sensitive to small changes if they happen in the right or wrong places, so a hung parliament can’t be entirely ruled out. But neither can a big stonking Tory win. I can almost hear it now. Seventy-two seats. Eighty-eight. A hundred and four. If they break the wall of traditional Labour-voting working-class areas that voted Leave in the referendum, the sky’s the limit. But even a narrow majority would (as I see it) turn the UK into a backward, inward-looking Dismaland.
Update: The exit poll has just come through, predicting an 86-seat Conservative majority. A thumping victory (see above). Romania is looking increasingly attractive.
