by I’ve just been up to see Elena, the lady who lives above me. She’ll be off to Canada in mid-July for another six-month stint and is already packing Romanian stuff you can’t get over there, like games of rummy and Rom biscuits.
Before that I watched the men’s Roland Garros final. Carlos Alcaraz won his third grand slam (already!), coming from 2-1 down in sets to beat Alexander Zverev in five. I couldn’t quite get into the match until mid-way, maybe because I have the TV in the kitchen. Two extraordinary points, both in the fifth set, told the story. On the first, Zverev needed half a dozen overheads to put Alcaraz away. You won the point Sasha, but look how hard he’s making it for you. Then in the penultimate game Alcaraz came up with a frankly stupid half-volley that clipped the tape and whizzed past Zverev. It was all the more ridiculous because they’d been playing for 4¼ hours by then. At this rate, the sky’s the limit for him. I didn’t see the women’s final where Iga Świątek beat Jasmine Paolini in roughly an hour. Świątek is certainly regina zgurii as they’d say in Romania – queen of clay.
Last night I played tennis with Florin. These days it’s just us two, we play once a week if we’re lucky, and only for an hour. Not like the good old days. We played just one set which I won on a tie-break, 7-3, in 47 minutes. I led 4-2 in games but then lost a 16-pointer on my serve on the way to going 5-4 down. He pinned my forehand corner for a winner on the first point of the tenth game, then I made a bad error to go down 30-0, but he seemed to lose focus a bit as I won the next four points. I struggled with my depth of shot; too many short balls allowed him to take charge. There were four deuce games in the set and I lost the lot. After the game we picked cherries from the two huge trees on the edge of the court; I’ve already eaten my small bagful with ice cream.
Earlier today I went to Satchinez, a village 30-something kilometres from here. (Satchinez, which means Chinese village, is a puzzling name.) It was a tricky trip because I got lost on the way. There was supposedly a nature reserve nearby. It turned out it was alongside the nearby village of Bărăteaz. I didn’t have my GPS device switched on – I find it distracting – but used Google Maps on my phone, relying entirely on Romanian voice directions. Left here? Here? Seriously? The GPS took me across a track in a field for almost two kilometres. It looks dry at least. I hope I don’t get stuck. When I got there (if there really was a there), I hung around just long enough to see a deer bound in front of me before turning back. This afternoon I met Dorothy at Scârț. Yesterday I saw Mark and his wife (yes, they’re now married) in Dumbrăvița. I didn’t expect her to be there. During our chat I could see she had all the hallmarks of an excellent teacher. We sat in the garden of a restaurant; I didn’t order any food.
Last night I spoke to my brother and my sister-in-law. As always we discussed the prospect of Mum and Dad coming out this way next spring. The three of us had a good laugh about their “can’t afford it” excuse. Then my brother mentioned Rishi Sunak’s bizarre decision to leave the D-Day commemorations in Normandy early. As well as being totally disrespectful (there are still D-Day veterans alive), it’s one hell of a way to piss off your base. The Tories are massively underwater with every age group except the over-65s who will be the most angry of all at his crazy decision to come home and record a campaign interview. Most bafflingly, what were his advisors playing at? Three and a half weeks until election day; I really hope the Tories get the damn good kicking they deserve. (Today in Romania both the local and European elections took place.)
