Buying property - Tennis

That’s rubbish! (and 28/5/22)

May 28, 2022 by 0 Comments

I’ve done it. I’m fully here now. Weirdly, or perhaps not, this feels far less exciting than moving into my rented flat did 5½ years ago. That was a new beginning, a thrilling adventure, the first man on the moon. Something I wanted to do. This feels like an obligation.

I managed to get the remote control gizmo off Bogdan (the handyman) last night, so I’d be able to open the barrier for when the removal men came this morning. They’d obviously got a bit lost on the way. Should I ring them, or should I leave it for a bit? One of dozens of tiny decisions over the last few weeks that have been magnified as a result of having nobody to discuss them with. Eventually three men (the boss and his two younger assistants) arrived in an aging white Fiat van. The boss started going on about gunoi. Rubbish. You’ll have to pay extra for us to aruncăm (that means throw away) all that gunoi, because if we just dump it somewhere we’ll get an amendă (a fine). What?! I’d given them two addresses. Pick up from A, deliver to B. No gunoi. Zero bloody gunoi. I thought I’d made that clear. On the phone he’d quoted me 450 lei, and now he wanted to charge me 800. Eventually they agreed to shift my stuff for 550 lei (the best part of NZ$200 or £100). I’m pretty sure I got shafted because of my foreignness, but what could I do? I had very little furniture – it was mostly just bags and boxes – and as expected they moved it all in no time. Then the boss went on about having seven children and no money and could I help him because he hadn’t eaten for ages and so on and so forth. This is Romania, everybody.

Tonight I met my landlord and handed him the keys to the old place, putting the final full stop on that chapter of my life. In the last two weeks I’ve felt worn down with all the biking to and fro and dealing with things I don’t understand and eating stodgy fast food and wishing I could return to the simple life I had when I moved into the old flat. (In truth it probably wasn’t simpler, but my enthusiasm, which is lacking now, got me through.) I’ve also had a whole ton of online cancellations in the last week.

Simona Halep suffered a panic attack at the French Open yesterday, losing a three-setter that she probably would have won in two otherwise. Back in 2001 I had two panic attacks on the tennis court, and I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy. (It didn’t help that at the time I didn’t know what they were.)

Tomorrow would have been my grandmother’s 100th birthday. It’s also four years since my brother got married and my aunt and uncle came to visit me. Happy memories.

Buying property - Poker - Tennis

Half here, half there

May 26, 2022 by 0 Comments

This is my first blog post from my new flat. I don’t feel I’m fully here yet, because a lot of my stuff is still back at the old place. Finding some movers has proven harder than buying the damn flat in the first place. Either they quote some exorbitant price, probably because they think ka-ching as soon as I open my mouth, or they refuse entirely, or they say they’ll get back with a quote but never do. Maybe, with a bit of luck, the move will happen on Friday. Then I can set myself up here properly.

It’s been a tiring last ten days with all the beetling backwards and forwards (as Dad would say) between this place and the old one, and my face-to-face lessons that now take longer to get to than before. There has been a whole battalion of flashing orange men to contend with along the way. The new flat is far more kitted out than the old one, with swanky appliances that want to have a relationship with me. Leave me alone, will you? This place is several degrees cooler than the old one, and I almost froze during my first night here.

The only time I was able to relax was on Saturday night when I had some drinks with the tennis crew. That was after my singles match with Florin which I won 7-5 6-0 after being 4-1 down. I was so sluggish at the start of the match. I’ve been invited to someone’s holiday home in Brad (or somewhere in that vicinity) in early September. I’m looking forward to the total Romanian immersion if nothing else.

I could only find the time to play one poker tournament in the SCOOP series and that was tonight’s $11 badugi. It wasn’t a damp squib so much as a sodden one. I got knocked out on only my 30th hand without winning a single one. A shame because it was eight-handed and had decent-length 12-minute levels, but I kept missing and my opponents didn’t and that was that. Nothing I could have done.

I only had one eye on the Australian election. It was a great illustration of how preferential voting works, and yippee, they got rid of the bastards. Then today there has been absolutely horrific news out of Texas. Nineteen children and two teachers killed. Right now I’m reading more “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” bullshit. It’s too messed up for words.

Buying property - Language teaching - Life :) - Tennis

The bells are tolling on my old flat

May 16, 2022 by 0 Comments

This morning I got the keys. After eight months or so of looking at apartments that mostly have views of other apartments, this bit has all happened at breakneck speed. As long as you’ve got the money, nobody cares. It really is just like buying a car. Or a shaorma. My brother was amazed when I told him how fast the process is here (in the UK it really drags on) and it was actually at least twice as quick as I told him it would be.

After getting the keys I called my parents and gave them a Skype tour of the flat on my phone. They were remarkably impressed, and not at all bored by my showing them every room in minute detail. At 81 square metres it’s plenty big enough for one person, and it’s amazingly well kitted out, right down to lime green cutlery that matches the kitchen cupboards. Initially I’ll have to buy very little. The only thing that’s semi-urgent, living-wise, is a new mattress on at least one of the two beds. My teaching room will require some thought and a little expense.

I panicked a bit last Wednesday when I tried to pay the vendor online and was met with a bewildering array of fields that I didn’t know how to fill in. I got to the bank when it opened the next morning, and the lady was so helpful. She even laughed at the bank account code – ROBU, which probably stands for Romanian Banks United or something, but is also the name of the ex-mayor of Timișoara. She really put my mind at ease. Sometimes nothing beats a real human being. I say sometimes, because in Romania there’s no guarantee that you’ll get that level of service; it was my lucky day.

A couple of work highlights of a very warm second week of May come to mind. First, I did a longish translation from Romanian to English that included a 105-word behemoth of a sentence. So much translation out of Romanian involves gutting crazy-long sentences. Second, I contacted Macmillan to see if they still had the audio of a lovely podcast interview from 2007 of somebody called Boris who does consultancy work but whose dream job is to be a clown. (I used it once before in a test that I created.) Alas, it had disappeared into the ether, but I was impressed by the Macmillan guy’s prompt reply.

Two singles tennis matches this weekend, both against Florin, the 60-year-old guy who comes from the Nadia Comăneci era when sport really mattered. Yesterday I won 6-4 6-3 – it was a rather scrappy match lacking many rallies but chock-full of service breaks, 13 of them in fact. That evening I went to the “boat” bar (or restaurant) by the river, with him, his wife and a friend. As well as some beers I had sarmale and mămăligă, about as Romanian a meal as you can get. Florin’s wife likes to talk about all matters linguistic, so we had a good conversation. Beautiful Romanian words came up like ogoit and prispă. It was nice to be totally within my comfort zone. (I suppose that doesn’t happen very often.) In today’s match with Florin, I dropped only two points in the first five games. I then led 6-1 2-0. But he hung in there, I started to wobble especially on serve, and I surrendered meekly towards the end of the set, losing it 6-4. I didn’t love my chances in set three, but I remembered all those times in about 2005 or ’06 that I came through matches like this, and after I eked out the early games he started to spray errors and I won the third set 6-0. Tennis is weird. Then, after we got off the court, it happened. I bumped into S, whom I met on Tinder in 2018. There was always a lot of her anyway, but now she’s seven months pregnant. “I’m practically a planet,” she said. With her obvious news, it was nice to have some of my own. Maybe we’ll meet up again. I might invite her to a housewarming, in which case I’d better remember that she’s vegetarian. (Not many of them in these parts.) S was with a friend, whose name I could tell began with an A because she was wearing a big “A” necklace. (I could also be pretty sure than it ended with an A, because just about all female names in Romania do, the only exception I can think of being Carmen.) Bumping into S for the first time since December 2019 reminded me of a lovely novel I read: Three Dollars by Elliott Perlman. The book is set in Melbourne in the eighties. At intervals of several years, the protagonist bumps into a woman called Amanda, and each time he only has three dollars to his name.

I’m writing this from the old place. The place with the bells going off 96 times a day. I’ll miss the bells; they’ve ruled my life for the last 5½ years.

Buying property - Family - Life :)

Messy money and a Wordle variant

May 12, 2022 by 0 Comments

This morning I called Dad because he’d just had his colonoscopy. He still has check-ups every now and then. Everything was fine and all he talked about was how hungry and thirsty he’d felt. Phew. I’m always worried they’ll pick up something.

The previous morning I spoke to Mum. She wanted me to help her with the Wordle, which has been plain sailing for her ever since she took it up last month. Except yesterday, which admittedly was a tricky one. It’s a weird word that half-breaks a couple of rules about what English words should look like. But no Mum, I’m not giving you the answer just so you can keep your winning run going. (She got it in the end.) This was my attempt:

I’m starting to deviate from sensible starting words like STARE or HEART in favour of MANLY or BACON or BARMY or CREAM or other words I happen to like that particular day, usually containing B or M or both. (Although today I went back to the tried and trusted STARE.) In truth, Wordle is getting a bit samey. Not to worry though, because there’s a new kid in town called Woodle, which I love. Woodle is to Wordle as snooker is to pool. I’d encourage anyone with a passing interest in word games to try it.

Am I really cut out for this property shit? I dunno, man. I feel I’m ever so slightly in over my head here. I’ve moved the money across from New Zealand to Romania – that took two late nights in a row because of the time zones and the daily limit – and now I’m grappling with Romania’s banking system. So many damn fields on the online form that could mean just about anything. It would be easier if I could pay in, you know, Romania’s actual local currency rather than having to faff around with euros. It’ll be a relief once I’ve finally moved.

It’s hot here for the first half of May. On Friday we can expect to break 30 degrees. On Sunday I made my usual bike trip to Sânmihaiu Român and was met by both cows and goats on the way. Just before the bike track started, the river was absolutely teeming with frogs.

Buying property - Family - Other sports - Photos

We all need some things to stay the same

May 8, 2022 by 0 Comments

Dealing with other people’s systems and processes has always been a major struggle for me – that’s half the reason I’m a private teacher – and buying a flat in Romania on my own is all about having systems and processes thrust upon me. As soon as the vendor gets my money and the sale is confirmed, I’ll have to pay my rates (this will involve a long queue), sort out insurance, and call the administrator (Viki, her name is) to get myself on the official list at the new apartment block. They explained this to me on Thursday. I should have the keys in my hand pretty soon, but I’m in no rush to move in.

In other news, I had a good chat with my brother last Monday. He called me during the day – it was a bank holiday in the UK – and I happened to be in the park collecting water from the well. I was able to give him a tour of sorts. Earlier I’d had a Zoom chat with my cousin who lives in Christchurch. This was a delight – we hadn’t been in touch for ages. Her kids – a girl and a boy, born either side of the devastating earthquakes – came on the line. Unsurprisingly they couldn’t remember me from the last time we’d met seven years ago in Wellington. They seemed great kids.

The snooker which finished last Monday was a fantastic escape from everything else. I haven’t been so engrossed in watching sport of any kind, including tennis, for years. The highlight for me was a toss-up between the Trump–Williams semi that went all the way, and that astonishing 85-minute frame in Yan Bingtao’s win over Mark Selby (which I have since rewatched). Apart from an obvious improvement in standard in all facets of the game, the tournament looked just the same as it did 20 and even 30 years ago. In a world where flying insect populations are plummeting and seasons are all over the place, it’s nice to have a few constants, even if they’re just people potting the same coloured balls with the same sticks into the same holes.

Just after Easter, someone gave me a biggish slab of drob to take home. The word drob hardly makes one salivate, and neither does the description of it: it’s a kind of loaf made from sheep organs with an egg inside. I got through it in a few sittings. When in Romania I suppose.

I played tennis this evening. The walk back from the courts is always interesting. Usually someone points out a plant, seemingly at random, and talks about a tea or other infusion that you can make from it.

I had an interesting moment in a lesson last Monday with the twins. “If you could change one thing about Romania, what would it be?” I asked them. “The people,” they shot back in unison.

Here are some more pictures from the lake I visited last month:

Buying property

A steep learning curve

May 7, 2022 by 0 Comments

So I did it. I signed the contract on Thursday. There was no sense of jubilation or excitement; my feeling afterwards was 10% relief and 90% what have I done?

My agent sent me the contract the day before the appointment and I read it, resorting sometimes to Google Translate to guide me through the Romanian legalese. Alarmingly, there was nothing about the furniture and appliances that the owner said would remain in the apartment. It also said I only had five working days to pay the owner; with my money all in New Zealand, this seemed a rather tight deadline. The contract gave personal information about the two parties; it said that the vendor was born in Arad in 1989 (I would have guessed more like ’82) and had already been married, had kids, and got divorced. I then found out she’d done a six-year medical degree and moved country several times. I was looking to buy one of her several flats.

My appointment was set for 1pm. I arrived ten minutes early. The agent and the vendor were already there. (I didn’t know exactly who would be there. I really had no idea how this would play out, although the agent had told me that the process would only take half an hour.) The TV in the waiting room was tuned to a music station called Kiss, and Cher’s Believe was playing. Both the agent and the vendor would have been in primary school when that came out. The lawyer too, as I soon found out when we were ushered into her office. I think they all just expected me to sign. Gata, as they say here. Done. Then I felt trapped. This is all happening a bit fast, isn’t it? How can I be sure that I’m not buying a complete lemon? “But you’ve seen it with your own eyes!” Yes, but there’s a lot my eyes don’t tell me, as I found out ten years ago. “Look, we don’t deal with any of that stuff here. Just the legal stuff. To make sure all the paperwork is in order.” At one point I said, “I’m not buying a sodding shaorma here!” (A shaorma, which can be spelt in a dozen ways, is a very common fast-food item, which we’d probably call a wrap in English.) My attempt at humour in Romanian fell pretty much flat.

I didn’t have my passport on me, thinking I wouldn’t need it because they’d already scanned it and at any rate I had my residence permit. But they needed it, so I had to go back home and get it. Ten minutes each way on my bike. The agent then offered to take me in his car instead, but it would have been just as quick and far less stressful on my bike. I could have got away from them for twenty minutes. All those eyes. People who knew the system and spoke the language. That would have been nice. Instead I had to deal with the agent, and he wasn’t a particularly happy bunny. He parked on a side street vaguely near my block, and I ran out and got my passport from my drawer. Then I couldn’t remember where he’d parked or which side street I’d run down three minutes earlier. My head was spinning by this point. (I went through a period years ago when every working day was like this. At 10:33 I had no recollection of what I’d done at 10:30. It was horrendous.) I finally did remember, and he drove me back to the lawyer’s office.

Back at the office, I began to calm down a bit. The vendor seemed trustworthy, at least. (But who knows, really.) I agreed to sign as long as the contract was amended to extend the payment deadline from 5 working days to 15 and to confirm that all the furniture and appliances were included, even though “all” could mean just about anything; there was no inventory even though I had asked for one. After a delay to get the amended document printed, I signed it. After another delay I had to pay the lawyer 5700 lei (almost £1000 or NZ$2000). Cash or card? Um, card please. Then I had to make another payment of 800-odd lei to get the ownership details changed in the official records. At least I think that’s what it was for. This time they only accepted cash, for some reason, and I only had a couple of hundred on me. Could I pay tomorrow? No! So I had to make a trip to the cash machine. Money is maddening here when you’re dealing with the big stuff. Sometimes you’re dealing in euros, sometimes in lei, sometimes you have to pay cash, and life turns into a web of cash machines and Arab-run money changers who make a tidy profit from all the madness.

I got out of there at 3:10. That meant cancelling a lesson, which is always upsetting for me on the rare occasions that it happens. I was able to see the girl on Calea Aradului though; I saw her 16-year-old cat, who she said had already suffered four strokes. I had an online lesson when I got home.

The learning curve on Thursday was so steep that I nearly tumbled back down to the bottom.

Buying property - Other sports - Tennis

Stopped in our tracks

May 2, 2022 by 0 Comments

I played tennis this evening. After our session, the best doubles player on the court asked me once again if I wanted to play in his football team. I really wish I could play football. As a kid I found the whole thing a massive turn-off because it meant having to play with other kids. Footbally kids. They were the worst other kids. My dad had no interest in the game, and neither did my brother, so I never got into it. Instead I batted a tennis ball against a wall for hours on end with no other kids in sight.

I haven’t made any progress on the flat purchase since I last wrote. The lawyer business is a sticking point because I want to ensure I have my own lawyer, but the agent is pressuring me to use the same one that the vendor is using.

This afternoon I met the teacher guy and we headed out on our bikes to La Livada where we’d eaten and drunk once before. His bike is pretty dodgy, and his chain snapped after a kilometre or so. We went back to my place (I was slightly embarrassed to show him it in its current state) where he spent at least an hour trying to fix it using my tools and a Youtube video but eventually gave up. We ate and drank in the square (he always goes for more expensive options than me) and then his girlfriend picked him up and that was that. It was good to see him regardless.

Snooker. The semi-final between Judd Trump and Mark Williams was an extraordinary match, Trump winning 17-16. I was glued to it for most of its many hours. Williams had come from 12-5 down to lead 16-15 thanks to some amazing long pots, but Trump took the last two frames under immense pressure. I hoped Williams would win, because it would have made for more of a contrast in styles for the final. The final is a best-of-35 marathon, and Ronnie O’Sullivan is leading 5-3 against Trump after the first session. Just before I went to tennis, I saw O’Sullivan steal the incredible fourth frame on a respotted black after needing a snooker. The match resumes in a few minutes – they play nine more frames tonight. One of the few changes to snooker since I last followed it is walk-on songs. In 2003, these weren’t a thing. O’Sullivan’s is a great choice – Drops of Jupiter by Train, which came out in 2001. I thought song was a few years older, partly because everything about O’Sullivan screams nineties. The lyrics of Drops of Jupiter include “Milky Way”, as do (unsurprisingly) Under the Milky Way, a brilliant 1988 hit by The Church. Pondering those two songs made we wonder if there are companies or products out there called Milky Whey, and there are plenty.

Buying property - Other sports - The UK

A new box, perhaps

April 28, 2022 by 0 Comments

It looks like I might have bought a flat. On Tuesday I met up with the owner, a very bronzed lady in her forties, and asked her about the heating and why there are massive mirrors, covering entire walls, in what will hopefully be my teaching room. She said she used to run gym classes in there. I offered her €110,000, just €3k more than my previous offer, and later that afternoon the agent came back to me to say she’d accepted. (The original price was €120k, which she then lowered to €115k.) I now have about eight more questions I wish I’d asked her. With this property lark, there are monsters everywhere, as I know full well. The process shouldn’t take too long – this isn’t the UK, with such horrors as chains and gazumping – but what do I know about buying in Romania, really? I’m using a solicitor who has decided to take the whole week off after Orthodox Easter. Then there’s the question of getting the money across from New Zealand. Obviously the property stuff will be front and centre in my life for the next little while.

I’ve just read this long article about public phone boxes in the UK. The old red ones are a symbol of Britishness; I imagine one next to a parish council notice board or a village green, near a cylindrical post box of the same colour. I don’t know what it is about that shade of red, which was also the colour of the old Routemaster double-decker buses. When I was growing up, our front door was that colour too, and I remember my brother and I being disappointed when Dad decided to paint it green. Some of them have been converted to mini libraries, or now house defibrillators; many more have been removed. I remember them stinking of pee and cigarettes. I last used one as recently as 2016 when I washed up in the UK with no way of making a call on my mobile. I tried calling my aunt but each time I got her answer phone which was useless to me.

Snooker. I stayed up far too late last night to watch John Higgins edge over the line in a deciding 25th frame against Jack Lisowski. These evening sessions can run and run, and I’m two hours ahead of Sheffield where it all takes place. Today the semi-finals start. These are three-day matches, played over a gruelling best of 33 frames. Ronnie O’Sullivan will play John Higgins, while Mark Williams takes on the delightfully (!) named Judd Trump. It’s a heavyweight line-up, all right. O’Sullivan, Higgins, and Williams all turned professional way back in 1992 and have all won multiple titles. It seemed they’d been around for ages even when I stopped watching 19 years ago. Trump won in 2019 and is supremely talented too. O’Sullivan will surely be the crowd favourite. I’ll watch a frame or two – but no more than that – tonight.

It’s a drizzly, grey old day today, reminiscent of the Land of Red Boxes.

Life :) - Other sports

An Easter big break

April 26, 2022 by 0 Comments

I’ve had my latest Skype lesson with the eight-year-old girl in Germany. I needed a glass of wine after that. Next time I might have it before.

It’s the end of the long Orthodox Easter weekend here. I worked all of the four days, though less than usual. It’s been nice not being hassled by estate agents.

Yesterday (Easter Sunday) I cycled to Sânmihaiu Român. I thought nothing would be open but there was a bar which served barbecue food. I sat on a bench and read the first chapters of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. If the beginning is anything to go by, it’ll be the best book I’ve read in a long time. I had to give up when some inconsiderate twat decided to pump out music on his boombox. I then went to the bar and waited a very Romanian length of time for my barbecued pork and wedges. It’s frustrating when you’re on your own, as I so often am.

Saturday night was the Easter vigil, a huge event here. People turned out in their hordes shortly before midnight for a service that carried on into the small hours. They seemed desperate to partake in it again, after two years when Covid put paid to the whole thing. I ventured over from outside the cathedral (there was no hope of getting inside) to the church at Iosefin, across the river, but the scenes were even more chaotic there. At that point I figured I’d rather watch the snooker instead, then later when the crowds had thinned out I entered the cathedral (with my requisite candle) to see what the fuss was all about. I now know that the reply to “Hristos a înviat!” (Christ is risen!) is “Adevărat a înviat!” (Indeed, He is risen!). Many Orthodox Christians use these greetings in place of “hello” at Easter time.

Snooker. I’m watching the World Championship, after 19 years of not following the game. I used to be glued to the screen all through late April, then I moved to New Zealand where there was no TV coverage, and that was that. If the last few days are anything to go by, I’ve missed a lot. It’s such a deep game. An innocuous cannon on a brown can have unexpected ramifications down the line. One frame can easily last forty minutes or more, then the next can be over in ten. The match between Mark Selby and Yan Bingtao, which Yan won 13-10, featured a monumental 85-minute frame, the longest ever in 46 years of the tournament and the likes of which I’d never seen before. Selby, the clear favourite, had come from 11-7 behind to close to within one, which heightened the tension even more in the 22nd frame. After Yan eked it out, he then coolly knocked in a break of 112 in the following frame to wrap up an utterly absorbing match. It’s been great to see all these new players, especially those from outside the Anglosphere like Noppon Saengkham this afternoon, whose handshake after his defeat by John Higgins was quite wonderful.
Update: Neil Robertson has just compiled a maximum 147 break in his match with Jack Lisowski. I remember Jimmy White’s one (1992 I think), then Stephen Hendry’s, then Ronnie O’Sullivan’s iconic whirlwind one, but I only ever saw those after the event. They were extremely rare back then. This one I saw live, and Robertson made it look easy. He was in a deep hole half an hour ago, but from 10-7 down and looking decidedly scratchy, he’s now level at 10-10 in a race to 13.
Update 2: Lisowski has won in a nervy deciding frame, after Robertson had almost won in the frame before. What drama.

Language teaching - Life :) - Poker - Romania

Happy Easter

April 22, 2022 by 0 Comments

My birthday – another one – was on Wednesday. It was just a normal day for me; I didn’t even see anybody face-to-face except when I looked at yet another apartment. (That decision isn’t getting any easier. I’m glad it’s now the long Orthodox Easter weekend, so agents are unlikely to hassle me for a few days.)

Yesterday I had my last lesson with a 16-year-old girl. Her mother had contacted me the day before to say that it would be the last one. We’d had some good and productive sessions in the last few months, so seeing the clock tick down on our final meeting was rather sad.

The weekend before last, I went to Lake Surduc with Mark (the teacher) and his dog (or really his girlfriend’s dog). It’s funny how I see him quite often but haven’t seen his girlfriend since around Christmas. She probably doesn’t like me. I can imagine their conversations. “I suppose you’ll be seeing your mate this weekend, then.” “I might do.” “God, he’s so boring!” “He isn’t really. And you don’t exactly like trudging through mud, do you?” Maybe she’s just very conscientious and spends her Sundays making lesson plans for the following week like my mother used to do. Anyway, Surduc is about an hour’s drive away. I’d been there once before, when my friends from St Ives came over in 2017, but we didn’t stop apart from to ask locals if there was any nearby accommodation. This time they’d clearly had a deluge of rain overnight – it was extremely muddy. There was no path around the lake, so you had to clamber through the adjoining wood. There were plenty of ups and downs. We passed shepherds on their small farms, and at one point we were met by six menacing dogs that had come from the farm below. On the shore of the lake we saw dozens of four-pointed (tetrahedral) seed pods that looked like medieval weapons. These came from water chestnut trees. We also saw some rather large shells. I had to cycle to his place in Dumbrăvița and back, and I later played two sets of tennis, so I managed to burn off some calories that day.

Some of those spiky seed pods
A shell and a muddy Doc Marten

Today is Orthodox Good Friday, or as they call it here, Vinerea Mare (“Big Friday”). I’ve just had a lesson with a lady in Bucharest, and I’m about to try and make a Romanian-style marble cake, following a video on Youtube (in Romanian) that has had ten million views. Easter is a much bigger deal here than in most of the English-speaking world, and it seems relatively free of commercialisation. It’s a family occasion, with a lot of traditional food. It’s the only time of year that Romanians normally eat lamb – as well as roasting the meat, they use the innards to make drob, a kind of loaf that also has an egg inside. There’s the usual sarmale and salată de boeuf, then for dessert they have various cakes including pască, which is made with sweet cheese.

After a nice run of final tables (but no wins, dammit) I withdrew $1375 from my PokerStars account. Of course I didn’t quite get all of that because they hit you with a withdrawal fee and an exchange rate margin that adds up to nearly 5% (or at least it did in my case). I’ve now got $719 sitting in my account. Maybe I should have withdrawn the whole lot and ended this unproductive distraction for good, but the SCOOP tournament series is coming up soon, so I thought I’d at least try my hand at that.

This was the scene outside my window last night, following a screech of tyres and metal. I don’t think anyone was badly hurt.