by Earlier starts are good for me. This morning I had a one-hour lesson from eight, then cycled to the local produce market where I bought a sack of potatoes, cheese (cow’s this time), some spinach and some spring onions. I heard a stallholder say “crumpir”, a regional word for “potato”: it comes from the Serbian “krompir”. As usual at this time of year there were bags of stinging nettles for sale; I should probably try cooking with them at some stage.
After I got back from the market I took my car for a spin because I was free of lessons until 2:30. What’s great about Timișoara (among many other things) is that when you’re out of the city, you’re properly out of it, so I drove to Recaș, 25 minutes down the road. Famous for its winery, it’s easy to get to from my side of the city. When I arrived at eleven, I found a town brimming with life and bathed in sunshine. It was lovely just to sit for a few minutes on a bench in the small central park where the trees were in pink blossom and the birds were chirruping away. There was a small indoor market and a popular outdoor stall selling mici and chips. Most of the folk were older; a fair few of them were gypsies. I’d only been to Recaș once before, back in 2017, to pick up wine with one of my students. After a quick look round the place I went to the winery outlet (in a more modern building now) and got five litres of medium dry white wine from the tap for NZ$18 or just under £9, then came home. On the way back I saw a Wizz Air plane come in to land – probably the one I’ll be coming in on two weeks tomorrow. Though it was a chilly start to the day and the temperature barely made it into the teens, there’s hardly been a cloud in the sky.
In recent weeks I’ve felt a lot of anxiety. I’m not sure why. It’s probably a combination of pessimism about the modern world as a whole (I keep wanting to escape it by putting on 50-year-old records) and recognising that I’m getting older and need to change aspects of my life but don’t know what or how. It’s also the being on my own thing. It’s been so long that I hardly remember anything else, but it’s not supposed to be like this, is it? You’re supposed to have a rock, a safety net, someone to share your experiences and problems and foreign-language life admin with. Without that, life can get precarious, overwhelming, and expensive. (Single people are screwed over financially all round. Politically, we are second-class citizens, not in the same league as hard-working families that David Cameron and his ilk liked to woo.) During my chat with Dad, he wondered how on earth he would manage his banking should anything happen to Mum. He doesn’t even have an operational cell phone.
My records. I’ve now got 18 albums. What are my favourites so far? My top three would probably be Leonard Cohen’s 1975 greatest hits album (one of the first batch of records I bought), Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram, and Mike Oldfield’s Ommadawn. All brilliant. Ram showcases Paul in his raw state, shortly after the Beatles broke up and before he got all sugary. Some honourable mentions too, such as ELO’s double album Out of the Blue, and Paul Simon’s Graceland which doesn’t really count because I’d played it hundreds of times on CD so its brilliance wasn’t exactly a shock. I mean, the first track Boy in the Bubble, good God. And if you’re talking individual tracks, Ramble Tamble – track one of Cosmo’s Factory by CCR – that’s mindblowingly cool.
I’ll be off to the UK next Thursday, coming back the following Thursday. After staying in St Ives, my brother will kindly pick me up from the airport and take me to Poole; I’ll probably stay there until Easter Sunday. Then I plan to get the bus to Cambridge and stay in St Ives. On the Monday I’ll try and see my aunt in the home – that will likely involve a long bike ride, then the next day I might see my friend in Birmingham. On Wednesday I’ll have to make my way to Luton and stay there overnight. I think I’ll just stay the night in the airport, as tiring as that might be.
I was apprehensive about getting a car but after today’s excursion I’m glad I’ve done it. It will open up all kinds of possibilities to see this beautiful country. And rather than being a cause of stress, it might have the opposite effect on me – outside the city, at least – just like it did in New Zealand.
