Last night there was an incident further up the street. Two ambulances plus a rapid response unit and a police van. It wasn’t easy to see which house it was (even by standing on my chair and opening the blinds!) but one of the neighbours was bundled into the back of one of the ambulances by police officers. Best guess is it was a domestic that got out of hand. Some of the other neighbours were in the street and seemed to have forgotten all about social distancing. The ambulance crews were all standing together and these neighbours were getting up close to them to be nosey. I’d have asked them to move away. They are the sort of people that you would want to keep a distance from anyway even without a coronavirus crisis going on. Unless of course you can hold your breath for 5 minutes and don’t mind burning your clothes afterwards.
Today is bin collection day. That’s how interesting my life is at the minute. I am writing about bin day! Our recycling wheelie bin is kept in the back garden near the back door. It makes it easier to put food containers etc in it as the kitchen door is next to it. I have to wheel it out of the back gate and down the side of the house to put it out on the street. The side of house had half a dozen bags of garden clippings and weeds etc so I decided that I would get up a bit earlier than normal and take the bags up to the woods before anyone was about. I could then wheel the bin out to the front of the house for the 7am collection. Sounds like a plan.
I set my alarm for 5:45. My bedside alarm plays birdsong. It wakes you up in a gentler way than a harsh buzzer or loud beeping. This morning I woke up and after a few seconds realised that my alarm was going off. I pressed the off button on the top but it kept going. It starts off quietly and slowly increases the volume. I pressed all the buttons on the alarm/clock. It kept ringing. I was confused. Why wouldn’t it switch off? I pressed all the buttons including those on the back that you use to change time and alarm settings. By this time the alarm was pretty loud. I didn’t want to wake Sue up. I pulled the power cord out from the back of the clock. The alarm was still sounding and getting even louder. What the hell?? Am I dreaming? By this time Sue was starting to wake up. I shoved the clock under the duvet which seemed to make no difference to the volume. “Sorry I can’t turn the fucking thing off!”
It was at that point that I remembered that I had set my phone alarm last night. NOT the alarm clock. The realisation came a split second before I smashed the clock against the wall. I told you it was a much gentler way to be woken up!
The Tennis Point Exhibition started this morning in Germany. I don’t trade exhibitions but was interested to watch it. The first match was already in play when I got to my desk and the favourite was a break up and cruising. I traded the next 4 with much reduced stakes. Liquidity wasn’t amazing but it was enough to trade them. I didn’t have a strong opinion on the 4th one but thought the slight underdog had the edge. I don’t usually get involved if i do not have a strong feeling on how it will go but the market made the decision for me. The pre match favourite dropped from 1.70 to 1.30 without a break of serve. That was after just 3 games! It would have been rude not to lay when my pre match assessment gave a slight edge to the other guy. The underdog, Haerteis broke serve and took the set. He also took an early break in set 2. Job done. Two hundred quid from low stakes to add to my football profit. I really enjoyed today. I couldn’t stop yawning though. I haven’t concentrated as much for weeks!
I still hadn’t heard from the local garden centre about an email order I placed on Saturday. I couldn’t get through on the phone so I tracked them down on Facebook and Twitter but they didn’t seem to have replied to anyone on either account for a few days. I tried the phone number again and eventually got through. The guy I spoke to said it has “probably been picked”. They just have to get to it. He reckons someone will be getting back to me by Sunday at the latest to confirm if the order is complete or if there were items they couldn’t provide. He apologised for the long wait. I knew they would be snowed under. Everyone and their dog is ordering stuff for their gardens. I mean, what else can they do when stuck at home?
I have been amazed at how relaxed Sue has been in the first week of her holiday. If I can get the plants for next week she will have something to keep her mind off everything else. She came upstairs this morning and called out, “Paul, you’ve GOT to see this! I just pissed myself!”. Why would I want to see THAT??. Obviously she had just watched a funny video on Facebook but I was worried for a second or two.
The last couple of tennis matches don’t look like they will provide much opportunity so I’m probably done for the day.
I must remember to put the body cam on tonight for the dog walk. I forgot last night until I was already outside and couldn’t be bothered to go back inside for it. Big mistake! Within the first 5 minutes we had seen 3 different foxes. All were very close. All stopped for a few seconds to watch us and all were under street lights and would have been captured on the cam. FFS!
I’ll get the little twats. You see if I don’t.
Stay safe.
