by At the weekend my brother messaged me about Mum and Dad’s upcoming golden wedding. It’s under six months away, on April 10th. He thought we should make a big thing of it in St Ives. But there are all kinds of reasons why that just ain’t gonna happen. For one, it’s unlikely they’ll be over in April. Heck, they might not be over at all. Then there just aren’t the people anymore. Most of the guests at Mum and Dad’s wedding are no longer even alive. It’s been half a century! There’s practically no family even. Simply put, it wouldn’t fly. Literally: Mum’s aging relatives in New Zealand are hardly going to make the trip for it. I think my brother still has fond memories of Mum’s parents’ golden wedding in 1989 when we just happened to be in New Zealand. And why not? It was quite the family occasion. All seven children and 18 grandchildren were present; there were uncles, aunts, cousins, you name it. Temuka was pretty much taken over by it. Stuff happened in the church, at St Joseph’s Hall, and best of all at the Tea Pot Inn (three words) where the fifty-odd (maybe more) of us had a celebratory meal.
On Saturday I had my usual maths session with Matei. He told me he’d been offered a university place at Bremen in Germany, assuming he gets the grades. Exciting for him. When he’s flown the nest, his parents will move Bucharest where they lived until 2016 when they moved to Timișoara for work. So after nine years, it looks like my time with Matei (and his family) will be at an end.
My cousin took part in the “No Kings” anti-Trump protests in New York state over the weekend. He’s not massively politically motivated, but that shows you the critical mass that has (at last) built up.
On Friday there was a huge gas explosion in a Ceaușescu-era tower block near Bucharest that killed three people including a pregnant woman. The disaster has since dominated the news.
Yesterday I took the car to Lake Surduc, and hour and a bit from here. Hardly a soul was there. The weather was just about perfect and it the autumn colours made for some nice scenery. Unfortunately there’s no way of walking around the lake unless you’re prepared to trudge through forest, which I actually did with Mark (and his dog) 3½ years ago. The lake is pretty close to that beautiful spot where I stayed with my friends from St Ives even further back. I came back via the town of Făget.
