We don’t often buy the local newspaper. Most weeks it’s more like a comic as it can be very thin and not worth the money. A neighbour told me that they had listed the various areas in Worcester and the Covid infection rates. Apparently our area is the worst in the city. Last night I took the dogs out as normal. We go past the local pub each night. It is set back from the road so we don’t get that close but I have never seen people leaving at 10pm since the curfew was put in place. However last night there were loads of people coming out. I would bet that they have had a visit from the constabulary.

Most of my family are in West Yorkshire and they are due to go into Tier 3 from Monday so I gave them a call yesterday morning to see how everyone was. It rang for a while before my Dad answered. He told me that one of our relatives had died the night before. She was my God Mother though had been more like a Grandma than both my actual Grandmas. It wasn’t a shock as she was 95 and since all this Covid shit started in March I have been wondering if she would make it through as she lives on her own. I am glad that she passed in her sleep. One of my first thoughts was of relief. She hadn’t been well for a while and my Mum has been going to see her twice a day since March which has been taking its toll on her. She is 77 herself. At least I had spoken to her on my birthday last month. I don’t think she really knew who I was.

I don’t know when the funeral will be yet as when I called my Mum was still at the relative’s house with the police and my Dad was going back there to organise the back door being boarded up. They had to break in when they got no response and the old girl had the door locked ( which she often didn’t) and had left the keys in the lock. I didn’t know if you were allowed to travel to a Tier 3 area for a funeral. It took a while and the sites I found didn’t really answer the question but I did find a FAQ page from Liverpool council who were the first to go into Tier 3 and they said you were allowed to travel to a Tier 3 area but must avoid socialising and couldn’t visit private homes or meet in private gardens. I would basically have to drive up for the funeral and travel straight back afterwards.

Last night I read on Twitter that we are all likely to be in full lockdown from Wednesday. That will probably change the situation but I will have to wait for the PM’s press conference on Monday. The lockdown is overdue though you have to feel for the people in hospitality and other jobs that will be badly affected.

The tennis has been pretty good this week although yesterday was one of the most random days of tennis that I have seen in a long while. The first couple of matches were ok. I had predicted that Gerasimov would win in 3 sets as underdog and he was a break ahead in the deciding set but lost. In the second match I went for Tommy Paul to win in 3 as slight underdog. He was twice up by a break in the third set and was 5-0 up in the tie break but still managed to lose. Both matches were great for trading.

I thought MacDonald and Kukushkin would trouble the favourites in the other 2 matches in Kazakhstan but both lost quite comfortably.

In Vienna I expected a close match between Anderson and Medvedev but went with Medvedev to win in 3. Anderson played a great match and won in 2. I thought Rublev would trouble Thiem but went with the Austrian to win in 3 in his home country. To be fair Thiem had a problem with a foot injury that slowed him down enough to allow Rublev to dominate and he won in straight sets.

Djokovic should beat Sonego with both legs tied behind his back but he wasn’t interested. Great performance by Sonego and Djokovic won 3 games. Djokovic tanked as a 1.03 favourite.

I thought Dimitrov would salvage a little for my predictions. He had played really well in the previous round to beat Tsitsipas and Evans hadn’t been as sharp as normal in his previous match. I had gone for Dimitrov to win in 3 sets. It did go to 3 and was another great match to trade but Evans won.

So in terms of final results I picked 1 winner from 8 matches. That’s why trading beats punting every time.

For the last 5 years we have gone to our Daughter and Son in Law’s for Christmas Day. This year will be different. They have moved house but their “new” house needs a lot of work doing to to it. They hoped to be in for Christmas. I had real doubts about that timetable. You always find extra jobs and problems when doing up an old house and that has proved to be the case. At the moment they are living with his parents who have a big house in the country. By Christmas they will have been staying there for around 6 months. It isn’t at all unreasonable that his parents expect them to have Christmas day with them. Sue and our daughter were discussing Christmas on Thursday and Michelle said she couldn’t have Christmas day without seeing us. A couple of times in the past we have had our Christmas dinner with them on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.

His parents have said that we are very welcome to go to them for Christmas. I don’t know if they said that as they already have 6 people in the house and also have their daughter and boyfriend there for Christmas and we wouldn’t be allowed to go there if we stick to the Covid rules (which we do). Maybe the rule of 6 only applies if you don’t have a big house. When Sue told me about the conversation I suggested having our Christmas on another day. Sue has Christmas Day off but is working on Boxing Day. She said she had thought about swapping Christmas Day off with someone at work who has Boxing Day off but that would mean I was on my own on Christmas Day. I said that didn’t matter. One year I was on my own until the evening so got to cook the Christmas dinner. I’m actually a pretty good cook but as we would die of dysentery if Sue washed up on a regular basis she cooks and I wash up. Another year I was on my own all day and we went to Michelle’s on Boxing Day. So it might just be me and the dogs this year!

Stay safe and strap in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.