by The best news I had today was when one of the members of the “AI bot” generation said she didn’t want to carry on having lessons with me. I can’t face those teeth-pulling sessions right now.
The last few days I’ve felt a great sadness and a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Plus I’ve felt shattered after consecutive nights of shocking sleep, which of course is related to the previous sentence. Kitty has been a non-factor in all of this; she really just does her own thing.
Yesterday morning I met Dorothy for coffee. I’m realising now what an invaluable friend she is. When I met her at the fish fountain, it was minus five or thereabouts, but sunny and with ice crystals sparkling in the air. It was beautiful. We chatted for nearly two hours and could have managed another two but for our various obligations (five lessons, in my case). She made me aware of two brilliant poems about trains – one by Robert Louis Stevenson, the other by W H Auden. The Stevenson one, from the Victorian era of rail travel, captures the essence of travelling by train quite beautifully. We talked about some of her family members, then we discussed the book – in particular a couple of quizzes I’d put in there that she said I needed to make easier – and then we talked about how the glue that holds society together is now coming apart pretty rapidly. Finally I decided I’d briefly mention this thing that I’d never talked about with anybody before – how certain letters of the alphabet and combinations of letters elicit some pretty strong emotions in me that I manage to keep in check because I know they’re not normal. In one or two cases I can even smell them – for instance Gs and Hs make me think of the smell of horses. The Romanian word for a herd of horses is herghelie which just seems perfect to me. I’ll have to write a series of posts about this because it’s just a big part of my life.
This morning I went to the local produce market for the first time since the autumn. With the temperature well into the negatives, it was pretty low on stalls. I ended up buying a load of prunes which I didn’t expect to see there.
Elena, the lady who lives above me, is finally coming back to Romania tomorrow after six months in Canada.
