by I’m just getting packed up for tomorrow, having finished my last lesson. It’s much easier when I’m not having to fly anywhere. I’m including a kettle; in Romania there’s no guarantee you’ll get one and I have a feeling Poland will be similar.
I’ve spoken to all my immediate family today. My brother said he had a go at Mum for still driving even though her eyesight is equivalent to downing five pints. Don’t blame him – it’s inexcusable – but I’ve decided not to go there with Mum. He also mentioned his frustration with Mum and Dad’s negativity whenever he speaks to them. I feel the same as him. As an example, I got the Maori stuff again recently. Even though I broadly agree with them, I don’t want to hear it for the 85th time. If it was impinging on their quality of life to even a remote extent, I’d be a bit more receptive. Maybe negativity is something that comes with old age.
When I saw Dorothy on Tuesday, she had the order of service for the funeral of Samantha, a medical student from India whom I met twice last year at Dorothy’s church. I didn’t know she’d died in May at just 27. Around Christmas she contracted a rare disease – some kind of inflammation of the brain, Dorothy said – and was put in an induced coma. Even though I didn’t know her well at all, she seemed a very nice young woman; to have two-thirds of her expected life taken from her is very sad. Dorothy said she’d gone to a better place and so on, but that isn’t at all what I believe.
Today is Sfânta Maria, or St Mary’s Day. If you’re one of the millions of Romanian women called Maria or men called Marian or Marius, or numerous other variations, you get to celebrate your name day today. It’s one of the two biggest name days on the calendar, the other being St John (Ion, Ioan, Ionuț, Ioana, …) which is in January.
I don’t think I mentioned that the plumber had been. He created a U-bend under the sink, and after fiddling around with the shower for a while, seems to have got rid of the stench. Which is great.
At the market this morning I went past the stall where the guy often pumps out Depeche Mode on his speakers. Today he was playing something Depeche Mode-esque that I liked but hadn’t heard before. I Shazammed it; I was only the 183rd person to do so, it said. It was a British band called the Recreations with a song called Neoprene which came out in 2016.
It’s 36 degrees right now. Yeah, bugger this.
