by I’m on day twelve, at least, of feeling like rubbish. Going to the park this morning was the most exciting thing I’ll do all day. I brought a flask of coffee and read a couple of chapters of my book. It was already 30-odd degrees, but at least there was a breeze. I FaceTimed my parents, expecting my battery to die at any moment, but just like me, it ran on fumes. They were fine. They’ve now had both doses of Pfizer, with no side effects to speak of, and the sale of their house will go unconditional any day now. We discussed the tennis, and briefly the football. Dad thought England had already won the competition, when in fact the final against Italy takes place on Sunday night.
When we hung up, two men in their sixties, one grossly overweight, sat down on the bench next to mine. They talked about the football, then switched to politics. After some time, a friend of theirs showed up on his bike. He wore a Germany football shirt that he’d almost certainly bought at a second-hand shop, and on his left forearm he sported a faded blue heart-and-arrow tattoo with an illegible name underneath. He talked extraordinarily loudly, his sentences punctuated by laughter and filler words like ba and păi. Then a fourth man arrived, also on his bike. His name was Ghiță, a diminutive of Gheorghe. He wore a red-and-white striped shirt, with just a single button done up in the middle. The tattooed bloke had a conversation with him, mostly one-way, cutting across where I was sitting. I find people talking across me unbearable in any language and at any volume, let alone the combination I faced then, so at that point I upped and left.
The lady from tennis, Magda, also phoned me when I was in the park. For the second week running I had to say I wouldn’t be playing.
I hadn’t watched any of the Euro matches, but did stay up to watch England’s nerve-jangling extra-time win against Denmark. They’ve got a very good team and a fantastic manager, and now they stand on the brink of history. Staying up until after half-twelve was no issue; my body clock is way out of whack. I had no work the next morning either; my hours have suddenly dropped through the floor.
Wimbledon has had its moments. I haven’t followed it as closely as in previous years. Ashleigh Barty’s win over Angelique Kerber yesterday was one of the more enjoyable two-setters I’ve seen. Barty will be a very popular winner if she beats Karolina Plíšková in tomorrow’s final.
I’ve been planning my trip. My idea is to take the train to Iași in ten days’ time (I hope I’m up to it by then), and then visit some towns and villages in the middle of nowhere, before taking a trip on the mocăniță (narrow-gauge train) from Vișeu de Sus, and eventually coming back home.
