by We’ve had some pretty warm weather this week, though we were spared the intolerably high temperatures seen near the banks of the Danube, and of course I now have few face-to-face lessons. This morning I had another lesson with the chap in Austria, who said that Romania’s coronavirus figures are probably deliberately overstated. Don’t know about you, but if was going to fabricate the numbers I’d make them go down, not up, and anyway I’m finding all these conspiracy theories tiresome, not to mention dangerous. Apart from that, our lesson went well as always. A highlight of the teaching week was another game of Maths Millionaire with Octavian. When we ran out of time, he’d got to £32,000 but had run out of lifelines.
I’ve been in contact with the Romanian teacher about the book. She hasn’t had much time of late. I did a 900-word translation from her from Romanian to English as a form of payment, but she has a much tougher task on her hands in translating what I’ve done. I’d have liked to have written the book in Romanian myself, but I’m just not up to it. When it comes to anything half-way technical, I’m clueless. I shouldn’t be too downhearted though – my Romanian is getting better in general. My speech is more fluent, my listening is better, and I’m at least aware of some of the traps even if I still fall into them now and again. The tennis is helping.
Five of us were at tennis tonight, including Domnul Sfîra, the 85-year-old bloke. I played the whole time with the only woman. She always serves the first game of every set, and that only serves to put her team at an even bigger disadvantage. In the first set Domnul Sfîra was on the other side of the net, and we eked out a 7-5 win. One long set was enough for him, and he left the stage for my partner’s husband, and we lost the remaining action 6-3, 6-4, 3-1, not that any of that mattered. In fact playing with either the woman or Domnul Sfîra is good for me because I get more exercise that way. I was thinking tonight, while taking in all the trees in the vicinity of the court, that if you enjoy simple pleasures, this Romania thing isn’t bad at all.
That goddamn virus. Four-figure daily case numbers are the norm in Romania now, and deaths are increasing. Timiș is verging on hotspot territory. People (or should I say people with money) are still travelling overseas, as if it’s an entitlement. The Romanian teacher is about to head off to Greece, and when I questioned that idea, she thought I was some kind of corona-Nazi. Right now, we all need to stop travelling. No Greece, and no Black Sea either. Just for this one year. We’re in this mess in the first place because of rampant, selfish, unnecessary travel. I still think there should be much more freaking out in Romania full stop, although it was pleasing to see about 80% of people wearing masks at the market this morning, even though it was outdoors. I bought some goat’s cheese, tomatoes, peppers, onions, aubergines, sweetcorn, cucumbers, nectarines and some watermelon. The fruit and vegetables are quite wonderful at this time of year. I’ll probably pick some more plums in Mehala tomorrow morning. It’s a shame we don’t have figs, which were heavenly when I visited Montenegro and Bosnia.
My signed sale agreement on the flat in Wellington, which I sent in early June, never reached its destination. I can’t be arsed with getting it all notarised again and sent via an exorbitant courier, with no guarantee it will ever get there. Nothing is getting to NZ from Romania, or vice-versa, as far as I can see. If my lawyer insists on having the original documents, I won’t bother.
