Tuesday, September 11, 2007

What's the Romanian for Oh, shit.

I apologise for the somewhat Imtrying to createanimpression heading.
I have, however, had a distinctly painful experience.
I am now in the little flat in Sighisoara which overlooks the town square. The heating works, I have a bed, a blanket ( sheets and pillow too), 5 chairs, 4 mugs, some soap, a coffee pot and a teaspoon. In fact all that one requires to exist happily in a stripped-down lifestyle. I accept I've slightly overdone the chairs but they came as a job lot for Eur 20, so I didn't think I could really say I only needed one. This was all carted into the flat by a taxi-driver - try that in Knightsbridge .They have taxis here which are like pick-up trucks, and people use them all the time to shift stuff about.
The rest will have to await Mrs. Lear's arrival next month. I haven't been married all these years without knowing my limitations.
Anyway, back to the problem. If you've been paying attention, you will know that a lot of my time here is spent wandering about the hills and fields, usually taking in some seriously rocky paths, and gazing contentedly about as the sun glints off trees, streams, sheeps ( as everyone calls them here) and listening to two Romanians planning where to put a tree.
Yesterday, we were somewhere about "The Faraway Tree", probably the best part of 20 minutes walk from the road. The temperature has dropped, as one would expect at 12-15oo ft up, but the sun is still shining merrily.
I tripped.
I got up, dusted myself off, took another step and tripped again.
Now normally, I can stay on my feet pretty well - and no I hadn't been drinking. The first beer yesterday was after 5pm.
I did notice, though, that there appeared to be a sort of dirty banana attached to the bottom of my left shoe. It turned out to be the sole, which had removed itself from the upper.
The only thing to do was rip the remains off - I could hardly trip every other step on the way back.
A little bit of history is required here. When I was 14, I broke my left leg badly,and, despite lots of excellent doctoring, it is marginally shorter than the right. So with the sole off, I was doing a good impression of Long John Silver pretty quickly - and yes I know he only had ONE leg, but he hirpled along, which was what I was doing.
So after walking for oh, 100 yards, my back was killing me. The sole of my left foot was starting to get seriously sore on the stones, and generally I was not in a happy frame of mind.
What to do?
I decided the back was worse than the foot, so I ripped the sole off the RIGHT shoe, which meant I was at least balanced, and made it back to the car on the inners of my shoes. Believe me when I say I don't wish to do this again.
So now you see the reason for the headline.
Strangely, something similar happened once before. My skiboots disintegrated as I walked up some steps, and I spent the rest of the day getting back to the hotel on the inners.
Anyway, we all made it back and some excellent Sarmalya ( cabbage leaves stuffed with meat) and a beer set all to rights.
Now I just have to break in a new pair of Romanian shoes.

1 comment:

Whispering Walls said...

Bravo KL and much happiness in your new flat