New Zealand - Other sports - Writing a book

The magic of the Cup

January 30, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

Near-biblical rainfall, landslides, homes falling into the sea. That’s what Aucklanders have been dealing with in the last few days. Mum said last night that four months’ worth of rain fell in three hours in places. At least four people have died. I had the usual hell-in-a-handcart stuff from my parents, though I keep agreeing with them more and more; we’ve entered what I’ve already called on this blog a post-optimism world.

It’s weird how I sporadically get interested in various sports. Now it’s FA Cup football. I watched bits of Birmingham’s entertaining 2-2 draw at Blackburn on Saturday – Blues opened the scoring in just the third minute, were 2-1 down immediately after half-time, but 18-year-old Jordan James equalised in the 91st minute, just after he came on as a substitute. What a moment for him and for the supporters who are going through an ugly spell right now – they’re struggling in the league and everybody hates the current owners. The end of the match was marred by racial abuse towards Neil Etheridge, Blues’ Filipino goalkeeper. The replay is tomorrow night at St Andrew’s, Birmingham’s home ground which I visited a few times more than 20 years ago. Yesterday I dipped into Brighton’s 2-1 win over Liverpool, which featured a stunning late winner, then saw a marvellous match between Wrexham (currently outside the league) and Sheffield United (in the second tier), which finished 3-3. The Welsh club were recently taken over by a pair of Hollywood actors. Their kit sponsors are TikTok. I remember Wrexham’s run to the quarter-finals in 1996-97; back then they were sponsored by Wrexham Lager. Alcohol sponsorship has now been banned, so instead we’ve now got endless betting firms, big banks, and the likes of TikTok – collectively they’re doing at least as much harm as booze.

When I watched those games yesterday, my attention wasn’t squarely focused on them – I was working on my dictionary, adding entries and tweaking them here and there. It’s a big effort that I know might be for very little. I’ve had no choice but to my other book – the novel – on the back burner for now.

Books - Life :) - Tennis

Ploughing through

January 29, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

At last we’re getting some real winter with some proper chunky flakes of snow.

I’ve had a busy week: 30-odd hours of lessons plus preparation time and ploughing through the city on my bike to see kids without getting my wheels stuck in the tram tracks, writing and editing more of my “tips and tricks” dictionary, and all the ongoing medical stuff. I saw the ENT specialist on Thursday; after seeing the results of my MRI scan, she thinks I might have a fistula up there. I’ve made an appointment with the neurologist for 20th February. In the meantime she’s given me half a shelf full of drugs: an antibiotic, a probiotic, a nasal spray (another one), two variations of a plant extract to deal with both acute and chronic sinusitis, and prednisone (a steroid) to take on days seven to ten. It isn’t easy to manage the whens and hows of taking this many medicines when “life admin” is already a struggle.

The Australian Open has almost passed me by this year. I saw that big-hitting Sabalenka won the women’s title this morning, and Djokovic will probably win the men’s tomorrow. Andy Murray came through two gladiatorial matches in the first week, one of which lasted 5¾ hours. But I haven’t watched a single ball being hit. I’ve had neither the time nor the interest.

The ex-owner of this flat left a load of books behind (and that’s not all – more about that some other time). One of them was The Girl on the Train, which I got through pretty quickly. A real page-turner, but at the end I wondered what I’d just read. All three of the female characters were incredibly shallow, with such normal problems, that I found it hard to care what happened to them. The men were no better, except the ginger-haired bloke whom Rachel met on the train, or was it near the train, but he only made a cameo appearance. When I read the first few pages, the book was full of potential: a slightly mad woman gawking at people’s gardens twice a day from the window of her train and making up lives for those who reside there, and wondering what her fellow passengers must have thought of her. Then it veered uninterestingly (for me) off the rails.

I might have had my last session with the tearful boy. If that’s the case I won’t be disappointed.

Family - Life :)

Devastated

January 22, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

I called my parents on Thursday night. Mum quickly left to play tennis – her first foray onto the court for ages – leaving just Dad and me. What a conversation it was. Skype still tells me it lasted 55 minutes. He said he was devastated by the business with their house. He isn’t someone to use words like that lightly. He said the decision to move from their large but practical two-acre section into their current place – Mum’s decision, ultimately – was a big mistake, and he was deeply moved by Mum’s sincere apology. They now both feel that, in their seventies, they’ve taken on a nightmare that will run and run. We feel so stupid. I was upset and couldn’t think of anything helpful to say even if I know all about property nightmares. They shouldn’t be facing all this unnecessary stress. Mum can’t let anybody know that they’ve had these problems – the shame would be too great – and now won’t invite anybody over. This is all a sign of the times – older people with money, still wanting something bigger and better, never happy with what they have. Plus, until now they’ve always won with property; they’ve never seen it for what it is – a high-stakes poker game that can reap rich rewards but can wreck you for years if the cards turn against you. Dad said they’ll get another quote for their current project, but will probably end up with a more modest plan and once that’s done – how long will it take? – they’ll put the house on the market.

I had a strange dream last night. Well, early this morning. In the dream I was about 25, and for some reason about to return to university where I’d be sharing a room in a hall of residence just like I had a few years prior. I was dreading it. I saw the room I’d soon be moving into – room 205. Just like an old Peugeot, I thought. There was a message on the door of the room, clearly penned by a female hand, that bizarrely included the word “fuckability”. I was worried that I’d get into watching football again. That thought surely came about after watching that football match in real life last Tuesday, and because watching football was part of my real-life university experience. I’d watch the Sunday afternoon games in the TV room, mainly to get respite from all the interactions with people that were impossible for me; as the clock ticked past the 70-minute mark I’d always get that horrible feeling that my escape was nearly over.

Language teaching - New Zealand - Other sports - Politics

Knowing when to go

January 19, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

I’ve just had another online lesson with that boy who cried. It was hard work – he rarely uttered anything apart from “yes”, “no”, and “I don’t know” – but at least he didn’t cry this time. Later I’ve got that maths lesson again. Yesterday I had a terrible session with the four twins. Having already exhausted all topics with them, I tried a printable domino-style words-and-pictures game that I found online – lots of painstaking printing and sticking – but the game descended into farce because there were too many cards and they were unable to read the words on them; none of them can read in English beyond words like “cat” and “dog”. The rest of the session turned into a load of nothing. It didn’t help that my mood was terrible and my enthusiasm at rock bottom.

Jacinda Ardern has resigned as prime minister of New Zealand. Good decision, I’d say. Most leaders are ego-driven, desperate to retain power at all costs, and they outstay their welcome by years. She dealt admirably with the horrors of the Christchurch mosque shooting, then the initial stages of the pandemic. Had National retained power in 2017, I imagine thousands more New Zealanders would have died of Covid “to keep the economy moving” or some such tripe, and the economy wouldn’t have moved any faster. Quite the opposite, in fact. Set against chaos of Trump and the like, her leadershup was a beacon of calm. Latterly, though, her star has fallen. The disappointment, as I see it, is that Labour won a majority in 2020 – almost unheard of in the MMP system – but have totally failed to use it. Housing is a zillion-dollar disaster. Mental health for many Kiwis continues to be a mess. (Mental health provision got noticeably worse in my time there; here was a chance to reverse that.) My parents are always telling me that local farmers can’t get workers from overseas to do the jobs that Kiwis won’t. I don’t know anything about this Luxon bloke who may well be prime minister by the end of this year, except that he’s probably less of an arse than Judith Collins.

On Tuesday night I watched a football match for the first time in ages. Birmingham City, a.k.a. Blues, a team I saw several times at university, were playing Forest Green Rovers away in the third round of the FA Cup. Forest Green are based in Nailsworth, a town of 5000-odd in the Cotswolds, and the smallest town in England ever to host a league football club. They’re owned by renewable-energy business moguls and everything at the club is fully vegan. During the game, flashing advertising hoardings counted up the number of plastic bottles thrown away, millisecond by millisecond, and other depressing environment-killing stats. Forest Green took the lead with a stunning goal in the eighth minute. Birmingham were terrible in the first half, though I liked their young player Hannibal, mostly because of his name. Their manager must have dished out a bollocking at half-time because they sprang into action and equalised just after the break. The big moment came at 1-1, when Blues’ keeper pulled off a scarcely believable double save. Though the atmosphere was mostly flat – the magic of the FA Cup is nothing like it once was – it was worth watching the game just for those ridiculous saves. Blues soon took the lead and saw out the remainder of the match. Forest Green were unfortunate not to at least force a replay; Birmingham now go to Blackburn in the next round.

Yesterday, before my bad session with the four kids, a fresh breeze blew, and as I was sitting at my desk hundreds of helicopter seeds hit my window before slowly twirling to the ground. At first I thought they were insects. This isn’t normal for mid-January, is it?

Family - Language teaching - Life :)

Grand designs

January 17, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

I’ve just spoken to my parents who were cheesed off, as Mum put it. Just as the builders were about to get stuck in, they got an in-passing estimate of $800,000 for the job. One zero too many, I suggested. But no, they were expecting it to be $500,000. Sweet jeebus. Now they’ll have to start all over again, taking care not to besmirch these builders’ good reputation throughout Geraldine, and coming up with excuses for the many occasions when nosy (and, let’s face it, competitive) “friends” ask them what’s happening with their house. I was sympathetic to the extent that it was affecting their mood, but (and this might sound rude) their ambitious project itself is neither here nor there to me. Tomorrow they have to make a trip to Wanaka to pick up a painting.

Outside my lessons, and thank heavens for them, life has been a struggle. Yesterday I had my cerebral MRI scan. First I had to go to another clinic for a test to confirm that the contrasting dye wouldn’t wreck me. An allergy test, right? No, we don’t do allergy tests for that. We do something else. Ugh, this is getting complicated. Beyond me. Outside the Nokia office block next to the clinic, I tried calling the MRI place but momentarily forgot that my credit had expired because I’d had problems with the BT Pay app the night before and wasn’t able to top it up. I visited the nearest branch of Orange in the centre of town and got my credit restored, then went back home, took photos of the six water meters and sent them to the administrator of this block who requests them once a month, and called the MRI people who confirmed that the something else was what I needed. I returned to the clinic and got the something else which was just a blood test. The nurse asked if I’d ever had a blood test before because of the way I must have been acting. I felt a mess. I went home for a second time, planned and printed out some material for my lessons, then left for my scan.

The MRI place was just over the border into Giroc. I rode to the stadium and another 2.5 km down Calea Martirilor 1989 which turns into Calea Timișoarei at the boundary. When I arrived I told them my weight, ensured them I had nothing metal inside me, and filled in a bunch of forms. I had to tick “Da” about two dozen times in what looked like a kind of waiver. They chuckled at my distinctly non-Romanian name and email address, but were good-natured. They hadn’t had the confirmation of my blood test, but proceeded with the scan anyway. I stripped almost naked and lay on the bed, my head clamped. I wore headphones and the woman placed a squeeze ball in my left hand; she said she’d stop the scan if I squeezed it. Was it a good thing that I had that option or a bad thing that I might need it? She said it would take twenty minutes so I counted the seconds. The initial screeching noises were like dial-up internet, then they changed to a “duvduvduv”, then a “baapbaapbaap”. The sounds were off-putting at first, but I got used to them. I was still going when I reached 1200; the time was only an estimate, and the noises had a rhythm which made it hard to count seconds with much accuracy. I was in the 1350s when I saw the light of day again. The lady told me that my test results had come through OK so I went back “under” for the contrasting agent to be applied – an injection to my hand, then a few more minutes of “duvduvduv”. It was all over. I got dressed, parted with 930 lei (NZ$320 or £170), then left. I should get the results by the end of the week.

The next hour or so was the best part of the day. I had plenty of time before my lesson with the single pair of twins, but not long enough that I could go home. I bought a cheese pie (8 lei) from a bakery, then a coffee (2 lei) from a vending machine inside a shop. While my coffee was being poured, an animated advert for cigarettes flickered above me. Let’s Camel! Only 19 lei. I liked all the greens and yellows and the seventies-style font. I also liked that while my parents live in the world of smoking permabans and half-million-dollar home renovations, I live in the world of fuck-it-let’s-Camel. I love the rawness of these little shopping hubs located all over the city. I bought some celeriac, leeks and mandarins from the market, then I was off to my lesson.

I had three more lessons when I got back from the twins. The best one was with the 16-year-old girl. We did role plays set in bars and restaurants. One of them was set in a pub, and had three parts, a barmaid, a customer Tina and her husband Paul. I asked her to play the parts of both Paul and Tina. She did Paul in a deep baritone, then rose about five octaves for Tina. This was hilarious.

Language teaching - Life :) - Maths teaching - Poker - Writing a book

A major upset

January 13, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

Yesterday was a ridiculous day really. For the first time I ever, I made someone cry. I told the 12-year-old boy at the end of our online lesson that he was being a pain in the butt (do you understand that?), and look, I really don’t care about what you’re saying because it’s irrevelant and disruptive, then he burst into tears. His mother then came on the line and she was fine with me, but I might never see him again and if I do, the next few sessions are bound to be frosty. After that I had to dash off to see the ENT specialist. She was very nice and had a look a the results of my CT scan in 2019, then recommended me for an MRI scan (known as RMN in Romanian) which I’ll have on Monday in Giroc, a place that used to be a village to the south of Timișoara but has now been subsumed by it, just like Dumbrăvița to the north. The scan will use a contrasting dye, so I’ll first have to get an allergy test.

Later yesterday evening I had my first maths lesson with the 16-year-old girl who started English lessons with me in November. She’s been getting low maths grades, so wanted help there too. That was a tough session for me because I don’t know to talk about maths in Romanian. I was unsure how to say even simple stuff like “root two” or “a over b” or “x to the y“. I had great trouble articulating the “hundredth triangular number”. Even the alphabet posed a problem, because when spelling a word (say vatră), Romanians say the letters differently to how they pronounce them in an abbreviation (say TVR). The T, V, and R are pronounced differently in each case. So what do they do in maths? Buggered if I knew. I resorted to writing expressions and pointing to them. What does this mean? What does that equal? She showed me her intimidating textbook which was older than her. I only skimmed it, but found no shape or space or anything else to give relief from the unremitting algebra, and certainly nothing handy for everyday life such as compound interest. She showed me a test she’d had to do, all handwritten by the teacher. It all seemed very backward.

I’ve been working on my book. Forget about the 28th February deadline I gave for myself; this project will take a while. The important thing is to work on it daily, or almost, so I don’t lose momentum. I remember when my grandmother wrote her memoirs. In 2001 she began with great gusto, but then her enthusiasm drained away and then she started losing her mental sharpness. In 2008, when she was really losing it mentally – probably as a result of a stroke she’d had – she verbally attacked the publisher when he visited her house. In the end it only just got published at all, although it did, which was certainly something. I feel a bit more optimistic about my first book now – “the handy English hints for Romanians” book – after the elderly English lady showed interest. I asked her if she’d like to collaborate more fully.

There’s another book that seems to have captured Britain’s – and the world’s – imagination this week. My brother somehow managed to get hold of a free PDF version of it. If I read any of it, it will be to look at Harry’s (or whoever’s) writing style and see if I should incorporate or avoid it in my own writing. Apparently it’s staccato. Short sentences. Like this. The content itself doesn’t interest me at all.

Now that it’s 2023, Timișoara is officially the European Capital of Culture. Or one of them – three cities got the honour. My home town, as it now is, was supposed to be the capital in 2021, but Covid put that back two years. In the centre of town on New Year’s Eve there was a celebration of Timișoara’s status, with live bands. I wish I’d gone and seen that instead of what I ended up doing.

Last Saturday I made $96 in my online poker session. A surprising second place in triple draw, followed by a win in single draw. It’s a shame double draw isn’t also a thing. I won’t be playing much for the foreseeable future – I’m getting more than enough screen time as it is.

Family - Language teaching - Life :) - Music - Other sports - Writing a book

The boon of the book (so far)

January 8, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

The book based on my time with the guy in Auckland has been uppermost in my mind this week. Many hours spent on it. For my mental health it’s been a real boon. Let’s hope I can keep the momentum going.

Fifty years ago my mother was on the ship from New Zealand to England; it left port on 1st January 1973: a six-week voyage (probably not an inaccurate term) via the Panama Canal. She paid $666 for a return ticket – a fraction of the cost of an airfare back then. When the return leg didn’t happen, she was able to recover half of what she’d paid.

My bathroom is done, or just about. I just need to get the bath painted. The work and materials cost about 12,000 lei (a bit over £2000, or around NZ$4000). My parents said you can just about pay that for a set of taps in New Zealand. As for them, they’re about to get the builders in for an altogether more ambitious renovation. They’ll probably need to vacate their house for a period. They’d been stressed because of delays in getting the builders to come. Soon they’ll take delivery of a new electric car. I often wish Mum and Dad could be content with cooking, eating, watching the flowers grow, and playing euchre with their friends, like my mother’s own parents did.

On Thursday my brother had keyhole surgery to repair his knee ligament which had been shot to pieces from overuse in the army. He said he was under general anaesthetic for an hour, and described the experience as like something out of Red Dwarf – that hour was mysteriously deleted. He talked about the artificial intelligence revolution, embracing the concept much more than me. He said, “It’s all fast-evolving mathematics.” Fast-evolving mathematics, you say? (He got an F grade in his GCSE maths.) Are you just making shit up, I asked him. I said that fast-evolving mathematics has been responsible for a lot of misery, like the 2008 crash. To demonstrate I turned my camera around and scrawled a random formula on my whiteboard (making shit up), then added a fudge factor to it. He then said I looked like one of those Open University professors in the eighties, complete with beard. This was, I suppose, what you call banter.

This morning I gave my first maths lesson of 2023. Matei, who started at British School when it opened in 2019, said he now thinks in English, even when he’s alone in his thoughts. For me, a foreign language becoming dominant in my life like that is hard to imagine. He said he uses Romanian at home with his parents and his dog, but that’s about it. His Romanian lessons at school are relegated to minor importance. That verged on sad for me. On the way to our lesson I cycled on the cobblestones of Piața Traian, then had to negotiate a wobbly old yellow tricycle; the man sitting on it reminded me of Omar Sharif, though it must have been watching Doctor Zhivago recently that made me think that. That all lasted seconds and seemed perfectly normal, but before coming to Romania it would have been bizarre.

The darts. What a match the final was between the two Michaels, van Gerwen and Smith. In the second set, van Gerwen left 144 after six darts, but missed double 12 for a nine-darter. Nothing too crazy there, but Smith himself was on 141 after six darts and proceeded to check out on double 12 for a perfect leg. That had never happened before and the commentators couldn’t cope. Van Gerwen, the clear favourite, was just a notch below his best; Smith took advantage. I had a lesson in the morning and I couldn’t watch the end of it. When I went to bed, Smith was 5-3 up. Either there would be a big shock or a big comeback, and it was the former, Smith winning 7-4 after a tense finish.

Song of the last few days: Aimee Mann’s Save Me. It’s a masterpiece. It’s part of the soundtrack to Magnolia, a three-hour film that I saw once but can’t remember anything about except the boy who peed his pants on a quiz show.

The weather. It’s like April, with sunshine and temperatures rising into the teens. The mild conditions mean I can get to my lessons easily, but it does all feel weird. This time six years ago I was waking up to temperatures in the negative teens.

Life :) - Other sports

New Year’s party — match report

January 2, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

Right, that New Year’s party. It’s over.

After being told that bow-ties weren’t required, I tried to wear stuff that was smart enough but me at the same time, in a vain effort to reduce my anxiety. As luck would have it, I only had a short walk to the party. On the way someone was cooking a pig on a spit. The venue was a substantial building that a year ago didn’t exist. There were forty or fifty of us there; I joined a table of nine – the tennis people and their friends. At the head of the table was Radu, a real matahală – a giant. There was a smorgasbord, a word which Joe Bennett said sounds like a pig in a trough, so we got our snouts in. The music wasn’t up to much – there were two rather pedestrian singers of around sixty and someone else on a keyboard. They did waltzes and other Romanian songs from two generations ago. Later they moved on to hits of the eighties, both Romanian and what you might call Europop. More to my liking, but when they sang in English (baybee! baybee!) it sounded faintly ridiculous to my ears. The musical experience would have been far better with just a CD or record player and some speakers.

There was a raffle in which everyone was guaranteed a prize. The top prize was a weekend for two in Brașov, the second prize was a weekend for two somewhere else, and although I’d have loved to visit these places (I still haven’t been to Brașov yet) I dearly hoped I wouldn’t win either of the two main prizes – the last tickets to be drawn – because I wouldn’t have had anyone to go with. It was a great relief to see my number drawn among the first ten and to win a kind of wicker basket. At 10pm we had ciorbă de perișoare – meatball soup, and then my brother rang me. I was able to get outside and take the call; I was grateful for the break. The evening progressed glacially – there was nothing to do except eat, drink, and talk. The clock ticked painfully slowly towards midnight. We went outside just before twelve to see the fireworks, and as 2022 became 2023 it was like a war zone out there. Unlike past years when I’ve been in the centre of town, this time I was in the backblocks and people were setting off bangers randomly in the streets.

At 12:30 the steak came out. Good steak, but I wasn’t in the mood for eating, and certainly not drinking, by this point. I often liken social events to air travel, and this was like crossing time zones on Garuda, no longer knowing what was day or night or up or down. Another hour passed. Then the big prizes were drawn, then we had dessert (a kind of chocolate layer cake), then at 2:10 I made the move, 6½ hours after I arrived. They were all nice people at the table, but I couldn’t keep it up any longer. There was some relief at getting away, but I was worried I’d have a splitting headache like I did four years ago after attending a New Year’s party in a kind of bunker. I have had a headache today, but nothing on that scale.

As hard as I try, that sort of event is too much for me, though there were many ways it could have been much worse. I’ve already decided I’m going to see in 2024 with a very small band of people, or even on my own.

I’ve been watching some of the darts from London. It’s a nice distraction. My highlight so far has been Mensur Suljovic, the 50-year-old whose facial expressions are a picture, hitting 161 to prolong his match with red-hot favourite Michael van Gerwen. The level of play in the match had been bordering on stratospheric, but in the deciding leg of the fifth set the Dutchman passed up a shot at the bull’s eye to win the match 4-1, expecting quite reasonably that he’d be back to clear up with 18 and double 16. But then in went treble 20, treble 17 and the bull from Mensur, and the commentators were speechless. Van Gerwen did win 4-2 in the end, and now he must be the favourite for the title. I’ve just seen quite a shock as Gabriel Clemens, the big German, took out Gerwyn Price 5-1 in the quarter-finals. Clemens was all over that treble 20 like you wouldn’t believe, and often he could afford to miss doubles at the end of a leg because he’d built up such a hefty lead. The big highlight in this match was Price, after a break at 3-1 down, re-entering the stage wearing building-site-style ear defenders to block out the crowd noise, and maybe distract his opponent. It didn’t work. Darts is a well-designed game that is great for drama, but it has nothing on snooker which has immense tactical depth. I’m already looking forward to the snooker World Championships in April.

Family - Life :)

La mulți ani!

January 1, 2023 plutomanby 0 Comments

The above Romanian greeting can mean one of three things: “Happy birthday”, “Happy name day”, and “Happy New Year”. Name days, if your first or middle name happens to have an associated saint, are a medium-sized deal here.

It’s still the old year here, but thanks to the wonders of video calling, I’ve managed to peek into the future. My parents saw in 2023 from the comfort of their own home; I dearly wish I could do the same. When I said I’d been invited to an event, making my apprehension clear, Mum said, “This is exciting!” without a trace of irony. She sometimes reminds me of Kingshaw’s mother in Susan Hill’s I’m the King of the Castle, I book I had to read for school. At ten this morning I thought, now I’m about as far from the start of the party as it’s likely to last, and that’s just horrifying.

Last week my British friends asked me if I’d be interested in working at their school. Just no. I’ve managed in the last six years by extricating myself from the system and putting in place rules and processes that work for me, not for some overlord who only arrived last year and will move on to greener pastures next year. Giving all that up might damn well kill me. If I could have some kind of part-time job where I turn up, teach for two hours twice a week, and then leave, while carrying on my private teaching, then by all means. But I just know I’d get dragged into this place where parents spend ten grand a year on their kids and expect A-pluses and Oxford, and in no time at all it would be game over.

My mental health hasn’t been fantastic of late, although when I look back at some of my old blog posts from years ago, it’s bloody amazing. If someone had told me when I was really struggling that I could move to this mysterious country in Eastern Europe and I’d somehow be on an even keel for six whole years and after that I might hit some choppy waters, I’d have bitten their hand off. Whether the culprit is my new antidepressant, even though it’s very similar to the old one, I have no idea.

I’m half-way through Homo Deus. It’s like we’ve recently entered a post-optimism world. My nephew is born into it. We still have our individual hopes and dreams and plans – I have my books, for instance – but on a collective level, what is there?

Family - Life :) - Poker

A new friend, and New Year dread

December 31, 2022 plutomanby 0 Comments

The building work in the bathroom is done; next week the plumber will do his bit. My teaching room, and just about my whole flat, is a mess.

This morning I had a good chat with my parents. We talked about festive seasons past. Ten years ago (can it be that long?) my brother had all his mess with that crazy woman. Twenty years ago my grandfather (Mum’s dad) died, so Mum was over in New Zealand for that, and the rest of our family had a go-through-the-motions Christmas in England. What a crappy time that was for me, those first few months after university, applying for jobs I didn’t really want and getting nowhere while I packed boxes of CDs in a business park.

Nearly three years ago, just before Covid, I met an elderly couple who had arrived in Romania in 2001. Late in 2020, the husband died of pancreatic cancer. This morning I met his widow, who suffered badly from depression after her loss. She lives in a flat in Iosefin, or is it Elisabetin, the area I used to spend a lot of time walking around when I lived in the old place. It’s just over the river from there. Her block, which is something of a rabbit warren, was built in 1919. It has eleven-foot-high ceilings, what she described as “don’t look” wiring, and a courtyard where people have dumped their lives. Her place looks far more lived in than my bare-bones apartment. Her living room has around 2500 books, most of them bought by her husband, some of which you can’t reach without a stepladder. She is involved in the Baptist church which has been a source of friendship for her. She speaks good Romanian and has worked as a translator here. We talked at some length about language, and Romanians’ struggles to differentiate chicken and kitchen, Tuesday and Thursday, or fifteen and fifty.

I’ve just received the details of tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve party. Seven o’clock start. Jeebus. Why so early? I’ll have hit the wall multiple times and it will still be 2022. In Abu Dhabi. I’m dreading it.

On the 27th I played a whole suite of badugi tournaments and made $67. I might have to knock the online poker on the head because, when I’m trying to write a book, it’s too much of a time sink.