by I’ve got tennis this afternoon, straight after my lesson with the young couple. It’ll probably be singles again with that super-fit guy. We chatted after last weekend’s game, and he attributed his fitness in part to growing up (and going to school) under communism in the Nadia Comăneci era. Sport was a top priority then, as it simply wasn’t when I grew up in the UK, and isn’t now in 21st-century Romania. Sure, we all did gymnastics and swimming and team sports, but unless you were one of the best at football or cricket, we were pretty much going through the motions. I know I was. We certainly didn’t have scouts visiting schools to eye up the best young talent, as they did in Romania. I was, however, exposed to a higher-priority regime when I spent those six months in New Zealand as a nine-year-old. There were inter-school tennis competitions, inter-school athletics competitions, and cross-country runs. I participated in all of that and hated the lot, even tennis, a sport that I otherwise liked.
I saw two more flats yesterday, both in the same block in the Fabric area, which is to the east of where I live now. The block was designated U4, as in “U4 me”, but I don’t think those places were quite for me. In Romanian, U4 is pronounced “ooh patru“. They weren’t bad apartments at all, but do I know what I’m taking on here? I left feeling more confused than anything.
After my Moderna booster, I felt fine for the rest of the day, but at night I got the shivers and slept no more than three or four hours. The next day I felt a bit tired and groggy, but soon I was back to normal. Some short-term grogginess seemed a small price to pay for the level of protection that the extra jab should give me, especially seeing that I’m in Romania where getting a severe case of Covid is a riskier proposition than it would be in New Zealand, for instance.
Mum and Dad missed out on seeing their one-in-800-year near-total eclipse of a blood-red moon. It clouded over at just the wrong time. I had a chat to them this morning. All is well there, although they have taken on a pretty big project with their new house. I also spoke to my brother, who was on his own – my sister-in-law was attending a conference in Liverpool.
