One of my favourite ways of spending a Saturday if we’re not going anywhere, which obviously we weren’t, is to sit in the recliner with my laptop, TV remote, drink and snacks and watch some sport. Sue was till off sick with her back strain and the neighbour had said she would do another BBQ. Thankfully the wind outside was pretty savage for most of the day. That was a real shame.

So that was pretty much my day. i took the dogs out a couple of times. When we went out in the afternoon there were very few people around.

The news of the day was that Boris’ advisor drove from London to Durham (allegedly twice) so that his elderly parents could look after their 4 year old as both he and his wife had coronavirus. He also found the time (allegedly) to go on a 30 mile day out while he was up there.

Boris held the Sunday briefing from Downing Street and not surprisingly all the questions, bar one, was about Cummings. Ministers had been defending the PM’s advisor all weekend and Boris did the same. Quite an incredible error of judgement in my opinion. There are a lot of people in the UK who are fed up with the lock down rules and are just looking for any excuse to justify to themselves that it is OK to ignore them. That excuse seems to have been handed to them on a plate. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

The weather was much better on Sunday which meant Sue spent most of it in the garden. She also spent most of it talking to her new best mate next door. She was cooking a Sunday roast pork dinner that was smelling amazing. The neighbour also smelled it and commented on it. Sue asked her if she wanted some. She always makes plenty. No potion control at all. We don’t have dinners on normal dinner plates. We use those huge oval platters that you use for parties.

Later that evening I took the dogs out. One of the houses opposite had 3 extra cars outside. One 4×4 was one I recognised from the previous week when they had their son over with their young grand daughter. That time they had all stood in the front garden which was against the rules. Apparently she is a nurse. Anyway as we came back from the walk I could see into their back garden from the road and there seemed to be about a dozen people standing around in their back garden.

When I got back home and into our garden one of the other neighbours was texting both Sue and our neighbour about this party. They were both getting angry and to be honest seemed to winding each other up. Then it sounded like a couple of garden parties were starting up on our side of the road. Sue was ranting about how if wasn’t fair. We were sticking to the rules and hadn’t seen our family and they were ignoring the lockdown etc etc. I asked her which house it was at. She said she didn’t know. I pointed out that there are approximately 10 to 12 back gardens that all backed on to one another. Just because a couple were playing music didn’t mean they were breaking any lock down rules. For all we knew everyone was in their own gardens. Playing music and talking loudly or even shouting doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. After a very frustrating hour I managed to calm her down. I told her that even if they were breaking rules there was nothing we could do about it. If listening to them was upsetting her then the only thing she could do to protect her own mental well being was to stop listening to them.

“But it’s not fair!”

“When was life ever fair?”

” I should be able to relax in my own garden”

“Then sit here and get more upset or let’s go and watch a film and you can relax a little more.”

After having that conversation at least 5 times she agreed that maybe I was right. As it turned out there were no loud parties last night. One family did seem to have friends round but kept the music low and were far enough away that you had to strain to even hear them. The worst family for ignoring the lock down completely have been incredibly quite for a week or so. They must have had a warning either from the police or from their landlord.

Sue’s back at work tomorrow. At least that will keep her mind occupied.

Stay safe.

 

There were only 3 Belarus matches yesterday. Two reserve matches and a premier league match. Having had a quick look at the reserve matches I was expecting 3 goals from 1 and just 1 or 2 goals in the other. My initial plan for the 2nd match was to back under 3.5. The over 2.5 was lower than I had expected at around 1.45 so I knew over 3.5 would be around evens. Both matches were scheduled to start at the same time but the lower scoring one started a couple of minutes before the other. For some reason I backed over 3.5 goals with the intention of trading out after the first goal. The Belarus matches usually have a first half goal or 2. After about 3 minutes the market suspended. I had a smug grin on my face. They’ve done it again.

I was a little surprised when I glanced at the ladder and it said I was red for £80. I had actually backed under 3.5 goals. I probably should have concentrated a bit more! As a very early goal often means you don’t see another for quite a while I left it. After all backing over 3.5 was the original plan. There was a red card for the away team who were huge underdogs and I think there was another goal disallowed but it ended 1-0.

The other game had 2 goals in the first 25 minutes. I think I traded out of the over 2.5 market. The third goal went in at 85 minutes. The premier league match had 2 goals in the first half. The third went in on 70 minutes and the fourth on 90 minutes. The over 2.5 started around 2.30 so I had backed at the start. I let it run as it was decent value and the score was 1-1 at half time.

As the last match started around 5 pm I had to place the bet on my phone. The BBQ was well under way. When I got downstairs Sue was in floods of tears. Our grand daughter was 6 today. We had FaceTimed her in the morning but Sue was upset at missing another important day due to lock down. So that made for a happy afternoon. They had the music cranked up louder than the street party on VE day. Sue said that this would show them! I think the only person it was pissing off was me. Gill, the woman next door had gone to a lot of trouble so I kept my mouth shut and ate the food! She had also made a huge cheesecake. Sue doesn’t like cheesecake. Gill passed me a quarter of the dessert. She later said it was meant to be 2 or 3 portions. I thought it was just a large Yorkshire portion and ate it all. Very nice it was too.

By 6 pm I had a couple of TradeShark members with issues so went back to my desk to sort them out. I couldn’t concentrate with the music downstairs. They switched it off just after 7 pm.

After the 8 pm clap we sat in the garden. Some of our late night chats are memorable. Often that is mainly due to Sue being bladdered. She had downed at least 2 bottles of wine. Out of nowhere she asked if we could get a parrot.

“Why on Earth would you want a parrot??”

“We could teach it to talk.”

“We’re not getting a parrot.”

“Can we get a Mynah bird instead? They can talk too.”

“No.”

“They used to teach them to recognise the smell of gas and also teach them to tell the minors that there was gas down the mine.”

Now it would be rude to laugh in her face. But I was close.

“What? You’re getting mixed up with canaries.”

“No I’m not.”

“They used to take a canary down the mine as it would be affected by any harmful gases before the minors were. If the canary died they got out of there.”

“No, they gave up on the canaries as they were unreliable. “

“You mean they kept dying?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s what they were there for!! The canary dying warned the minors that there was gas. A canary was easier to replace than a minor!”

“No! I went on a school trip and they told us about it. I must have been….er……how old was I?”

“Three?”

“Fuck off I wasn’t three! They explained it all.”

“OK let’s think about it. They go to all the time and effort to teach the bird about harmful gases. Then they teach it the phrase that will warn the minors. Right?”

“Right”

“Then they take it down the mine. The bird detects the gases but before he can get a word out he dies from the fucking gas! LIKE THE CANARY USED TO!”

“Look, you’re not always right. The Mynah bird was named after the minors that they protected.”

I was pretty much on the floor by this time.

“Think! If they had been named after the minors why did they spell it completely differently??”

“You’re not always right.”

“Absolutely but in this case I think I am right that they never taught Mynah birds about poisonous gases so they could shout a warning to the minors.”

“Google it. You’ll be embarrassed. I’m going to bed.”

I enjoyed the peace for half an hour before I took the dogs out.

I went up to bed around 12:30. Sue was laying diagonally across the bed. You would think that a gentle nudge would half wake her up and she would move. Nope. I didn’t want to push her any harder in case I hurt her back so I went downstairs and tried to sleep on the sofa. At around 3 am I heard her go to the toilet. I ran upstairs and jumped into bed.

Stay safe.