by I’ve managed to fall out with Mum. This isn’t the first time this has happened, or the 21st, but none of the other occasions involved her rolling around on the floor screaming and saying she wanted to die. There’d be no point in suggesting that she visits the doctor, which is probably what she needs. Minutes after dragging herself up from the floor she was browsing curtains on the UK-based John Lewis website. I’m no expert on these things, but that would seem to suggest that she wants to live. This all happened five hours ago and she still won’t talk to me. The easiest thing would be for me to apologise, but I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. Mum flies off the handle and ratchets up the stakes at the slightest thing, causing a lot of unnecessary stress for everyone. Today I called her out on that, not that she paid any attention to what I said of course. She was just deeply offended and that was that (as always; you can never have a reasoned argument with Mum). This is awful timing when I’m about to go away.
One side benefit of our falling-out is that my bags are now fully packed. I thought I might not be welcome here anymore. I’d rather spend the next three nights in Christchurch than here in Geraldine, even with the added expense, because there’d be far more to do, but I expect I’ll be staying here after all.
I played tennis last Saturday for the last time in a long time, against the guy I was extremely lucky to beat last month. No such luck this time. He played a blinder. Everything he touched turned to gold. I played far better than last time too, but after losing four games out of five to concede the first set 6-4 I was out of ideas. My losing run extended to eight games from nine in the second set, and the glimmer of hope I got from winning the next two games was quickly snuffed out as I lost the set 6-2 and the match in an hour. It was a damn good hour of exercise though.
Timișoara has been named European Capital of Culture for 2021. It’s the same award that was bestowed on Sibiu in 2007, and hopefully it will have the same effect. Fantastic news for the first Romanian city I’ll get to visit (in just 13 days!).
