It’s the last ATP tournament of the season with the World Tour Finals in London. The Challenger calendar seems to have been updated since the last time I checked it. There are 2 tournaments next week and 2 the week after.

Unfortunately the WTA tournament in Limoges has been cancelled. This is because of the 2 week quarantine that players must respect if they want to play in Australia.

Something else needed replacing in the kitchen! We have already had a new cooker and a new washing machine during Covid. Last week I noticed that the fridge wasn’t cold enough. The freezer was working fine. A google search came up with several possible reasons and I spent a day trying to fix it in between trades. Nothing worked and as it was about 12 years old we were due a new one. As Sue has more idea now of how much money we have I expected her to push for one of those American style fridge freezers. I was bracing myself for the 900+ quid bill but she was happy with a standard one. It has a lot more capacity than the old one and a cold water dispenser on the front so she’s happy. I did tell her that if she breaks a leg or an arm I will have to throw her out. I can’t justify the expense of replacing anything else.

We will be having our Christmas Day on Boxing Day so Sue has swapped her shifts at work. That means she is working on Christmas day and it’s just me and the dogs at home. I don’t mind that. We have done it before. We’ll go on a long walk and then hit Netflix.

Things have remained pretty quiet around here. Most families are keeping their kids inside during lockdown. There are a few who think they can do what they like. It often seems to be the people who have the most kids that are the worst parents. One family has 9 kids and a few of them have been meeting up with a few from other households. They express themselves by screaming as if possessed. They are far enough away from us for them not to be a problem but I’m sure those parents who ARE keeping their sprogs inside won’t be impressed.

I got some new dog shampoo. This time of year tends to bring a little more of that wet dog smell. I found something on Amazon that claimed to make dogs smell like baby powder. It really works!! I bath them outside so needed a mild day to try it out. I managed to get Molly done last week but it rained practically every day after that so Charlie stayed smelly (not VERY smelly but enough that he was due a bath). The sun was out briefly on Sunday morning so I took the chance to bath him. He smells LOVELY! He goes very fluffy after a bath which seems to depress him for a while. He then takes the first chance he gets to roll in fox shit. This time not only is he fluffy but he smells like baby powder. He’s WELL impressed.

Sue has been looking forward to the new series of The Crown coming onto Netflix. She asked if she could watch it last night. I don’t mind it so we watched the first 2 episodes. That took us to 11pm. I took the dogs out and went to bed. She was up until 2am watching more of it. She got up as normal at 7am but soon went back to bed. When she got up she watched the rest of the series. She said the last one was an anti-climax. She was absolutely bolloxed when I finished work. We ate at 6 and she went straight to bed. She is working Tuesday and Wednesday so she’ll be like a zombie by Wednesday night.

It’s nearly time for the Medvedev v Zverev match at the year end finals. Slight edge to Zverev although I thought the same when they met in the Paris Masters final.

That’s about it for now. Stay safe.