by I had seven lessons scheduled for Thursday. That would have been a record, but by the Romanian law of low averages it was pretty unlikely that they’d all actually happen. In the end, only four did. The guy who probably didn’t have Covid cancelled, then the new woman cancelled because she’d had a fight with her boyfriend, then I got a message from the twelve-year-old girl’s mum to say that she was ill. In the final case I had no complaints.
Saturday morning was cold, with thick fog. I went to the market in Mehala, which isn’t a million miles from that house I’d looked at the previous day, but didn’t buy anything. When I came back I had my lesson with the young couple, which went fine. I then watched an episode of Black Mirror. Hang the DJ, season four, episode four. I nearly didn’t watch it because I knew it was all about relationships, something I find ever so slightly triggering, but it was great episode and I’m glad I watched it.
After Black Mirror it was time for some poker. A fixed-limit badugi tournament with a $5.50 buy-in and 96 entries. I haven’t run well in that tournament in general, and on multiple occasions I had one foot out of the exit door. But I kept surviving, and when we got down to six players, all my Christmases came at once. I amassed a big stack which I never relinquished, and although we had a protracted short-handed battle, I was able to run out the winner for a profit of $90 in a little under four hours. What a surprise that was. It was my first win in 90 tournaments – that sounds bad, but in the intervening period I had four second places and two thirds. Yesterday, normal service resumed – three tournaments in which I got precisely nowhere. My bankroll is now $1096.
I’ve been listening to End of the Line by the Traveling Wilburys. (When I was younger, I imagined it was Wilberries, a kind of fruit. It’s only one letter away from those wimberries that I picked over the summer.) It’s a great song, and one that reminds me of the simple Twizel house we lived in on Princes Street in Temuka in the winter of ’89, before moving to a place on Richard Pearse Drive. We had no TV, and made do with the radio that was tuned to either 93 Gold or Radio Caroline. We always got the results from races eight, nine and ten. The scratchings and quinellas and trifectas. Racing seemed a big part of Kiwi life back then. I’m pretty sure one of the bedrooms had a waterbed, which were all the rage in the late eighties over there. There was always the pungent smell of chimney smoke, which we never had in the UK.
I played tennis again yesterday. Once again it was singles with the guy of nearly sixty who is like the Duracell bunny. How does he never get tired? I won the first two games, then he won the next three. I edged back in front, and on his serve at 4-5 down, he led 30-0 but I levelled the game at 30-all. The next point was an exhausting long rally, which I won to bring up set point, but I hit long on both the next two points and he dominated the rest of the set. I think that long point ultimately cost me. I was soon in a deep hole at 5-7, 1-4, having lost seven games out of eight. I was struggling physically while he was as fresh as a daisy. I also couldn’t win the important points. He had a killer shot to my backhand corner that I found hard to combat, and he saved plenty of game points with it. Despite the fatigue and sweat, I clung on, and reached 4-4. At 30-all in the next game, I had him pinned to both sidelines before eventually winning the point ten shots after I thought I’d won it. But he played the next three points as if nothing had happened, winning them all. Quite extraordinary. He led 30-0 in game ten to move within two points from victory, but I won the next four points to break him. At 5-5 I held serve from 15-40, but then he held to love to force a tie-break. I won the shoot-out 7-4 and we finished all square, but I was left wondering how somebody of that age could be so fit. I saw that sometimes with the trip leaders on the day tramps I did around Wellington. Is it all in the genes?
Here are some pictures of abandoned Timișoara. There are ex-swimming pools dotted around the city. If you look closely you can see the name of Morărit CILT, an old flour mill.
