by It’s quarter to eleven on a Saturday night, slap-bang in the middle of Romania’s third-biggest city. As I write this, I can hear an owl. Every now and then I can also hear a freight train rattling and whistling by on the other side of the park. I’ve never heard the trains before. The cathedral chime for “quarter to” seemed especially loud. Our clocks go forward tonight, in fact, but this year it’s a pointless exercise. Tomorrow it will get dark at close to 8pm, but somehow it’s as if the clock has struck thirteen.
Today I caught up with family – a long chat with my cousin and her husband in Wellington to begin with, then I Skyped another cousin who lives in New York State with his Italian wife (she assured me that her parents in northern Italy are OK), then finally I FaceTimed my parents. Family now seem more important than ever.
I popped my head out of the door just to fill up two water bottles in the park, and even that required a form to be filled in. When I got back I walked briskly up and down the stairs five times (640 steps up and 640 steps down), carrying those ten litres of water on my back.
The news is endlessly frightening. Deaths are now in five figures in Italy and four figures in the UK (and because they only seem to be counting those who die in hospital, the UK figures are probably understated). In Romania, eight more deaths have been confirmed today, taking the total to 34, while the latest increase in cases was at least on the small side.
