by I spoke to my parents yesterday, shortly after they nearly set light to their fence and heaven knows what else. The ashes they’d disposed of were hotter than they thought, and soon their garden was in flames. Emergency over, we discussed their travel plans. Dad used to be keen to push off anywhere at the drop of a hat. Not now. Since he last left New Zealand, he’s had a major health scare and he’s been understandably spooked by the spectre of Covid. He also had a check on his heart recently; they found that his aortic arch was unusually wide, and they won’t know whether it’s expanding (which would be bad news) until he has another check-up next year. He should have been having regular checks ever since his aortic valve replacement way back in oh-five, but that was done in the UK and he slipped through the net in NZ. On top of that, he’s had a long run of splitting headaches. As for Mum, she now finds all the organisation and online booking (which inevitably she has the privilege of doing) a pain in the arse, and I can’t say I blame her. They have two kids in Europe and a grandchild coming fast, so they’re flying over, but I’m not putting any pressure on them to come and see me in Romania. They’re arriving in London on 12th October, when the new addition should be three weeks old.
Last Monday when I dismantled the massive wardrobe that was in my teaching room, I got a surprise. At the back of the top shelf, seven feet up, was a brown Gucci box which I fully expected to be empty. But no, it had a women’s Gucci bracelet watch inside. Worth a fortune? A fake? I googled Gucci watches and then went to the watch repairer next to Auchan in Iulius Mall. He put a battery in it and said that it probably is the real deal, but from Gucci’s “cheaper” collection, i.e. it would have been bought for hundreds, not thousands. It’s not the sort of watch that appreciates in value, so it might be worth £100 or maybe a tad more. Rather than selling it, I’ve decided to give it to my sister-in-law when I next see her, hopefully in October.
My big thing (by my standards) right now is doing up my teaching room. After tonight’s lesson in it, which will be almost entirely in Romanian, I’m going to set about painting it. I spoke to Dad about this yesterday. Paint it magnolia, he said. Too late, I’ve already bought a big tub of yellow paint. Real yellow. When I was growing up, my parents were always painting everything magnolia, a “colour” that I could never see the point of. It’s quite a departure for me to be painting or DIYing anything. I mean, this is the first time in my life I’ve really had my own place. My flat in Wellington was mine in name only. And here there’s extra motivation, because it’s a room I’ll be using for my business. The “teaching zone”, which I want to look distinct from the rest of my flat.
It’s late summer, so the fruit is great right now. On my last trip to the market, I bought some lovely crisp apples that reminded me of the Worcesters we had in England. There are peaches and nectarines and plums. Mountains of plums. I read somewhere that Romania is the world’s second-biggest exporter of plums, and yesterday I could see why. I went to Mehala, an older district of town where the streets have wide berms, many of which are lined with plum trees. I now have some accurate scales; I picked 5.9 kilos of plums, but I could have removed the decimal point from that and still wouldn’t have scratched the surface. Those trees were loaded; even the odd branch had collapsed under the weight of the fruit.
My teaching hours are, for the moment, way down. It gives me the chance to go for longish bike rides like I did this morning, work on my Romanian, and yes, attempt to do up my classroom before all the students (hopefully) come back.
