Diary

I think it has been almost 2 weeks since the last diary post. Things are really busy. I certainly aren’t complaining. It’s great to be busy. Just before the CoronaVirus arrived things were going nuts. In a good way. The business was flying and it was really frustrating when it was taken away. That sounds selfish and of course it is. I personally have come through Covid losing a lot less than most people.

Once the tennis started up again in August things got back to near normal more or less straight away. I tried to be as fair as I could be with subscribers to the trading emails service and promised that no one would miss out on the email days that they had paid for. Those who signed up for the whole 2020 season could, theoretically, have been told that it wasn’t my fault that the tennis tours were shut down. That just wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. We missed four and a half months due to the virus so those people will get the first four and a half months of next season free to compensate. I even worked out how many days the monthly subscribers missed out on and have carried those days over to when the tours restarted. I was obviously refunding payments during Covid and advised subscribers to cancel subscriptions and just hoped that they would sign up again in August once any carried over days had been used up. I would say over 90% DID sign up again. Amazing loyalty.

The US Open was a decent tournament and certainly gave us 2 great finals. Two weeks later and we’re looking at another grand slam. The French Open starts on Sunday. I’m double booked on Sunday. When we were asked to have the grandkids we agreed. I don’t know why but it wasn’t until I was out with the dogs last night that the penny dropped. Shit! I will miss most of the opening day. I can do the research for the trading tips emails on Saturday and I’ll have to work very late on Sunday to get the email written for Monday! I’ll get to trading the matches myself from Monday.

I made a schoolboy error this evening. I was checking my Paypal balance on the laptop and my wife was looking over my shoulder. She knows the business is going well but doesn’t know HOW well. She does have more of an idea now. Thankfully she hasn’t seen my bank account. We have always had separate accounts. Anyway the new gas cooker arrives on Tuesday and the new washing machine arrives on Wednesday.

The French Open draws have been released this evening. I haven’t had a look at them yet. I’ll do that in the morning and try to work out which players stand a chance of having a good tournament.

I posted a video showing 4 matches in a row. It seems to have been well received so I recorded another session yesterday. It is 6 hours long! I’m not posting a 6 hour video so will split it down into 3 videos. I will edit out some of the dead time but will leave the important stuff in including the final market suspension so you can see the actual end result isn’t different to where I stopped the video. It takes quite a while to tidy them up and add a commentary but I’m on it.

We have increased lockdown measures and Boris says they will be with us for 6 months or more. They are a long way from the total lockdown that we had in March but a lot of people are going to struggle. Those who rely on the office workers for the lunch time trade for example as people are being told to work from home again. A lot of businesses were getting ready to reopen but that has been put on hold and if it lasts for 6 months so many businesses will not survive. It is heart breaking to see people around me and on TV whose lives are on a knife edge. Some potentially could lose everything. I’m not sure how the government can support everyone. Some tough times ahead.

Be kind to one another. It’s not always obvious who is struggling.

 

A busy week. It’s been the second week of the US Open plus we had an ATP clay tournament in Austria and a WTA tournament in Turkey. My top pick for the outright winners market was for Jennifer Brady to reach the semi finals. She did make it that far and took Osaka to 3 sets. I had also said that Osaka was the only person with a solid chance of taking the title. I wish I had backed my own predictions but I don’t bother with the outright winner market. I had Azarenka going out in the second round after her Cincinnati title win the week before.

From tomorrow groups of more than 6 people are not allowed. The increase in cases is exponential but so far isn’t translating into deaths. For some reason the change in the rules wasn’t put in place immediately. I have heard a few people saying that they were going to have huge parties this weekend. I would have expected them on Friday and Saturday night but things were surprisingly quiet. To be fair the main party house ( they are actually 3 houses who class themselves as 1 household) have been very quiet for a couple of weeks. I did hear that there had been a lot of complaints. The prison officers house has taken over as Party Central. They even put up a couple of large shed type structures where they can all pile in if the weather is bad. They have had friends round the last 2 nights but the music and their voices were kept extremely low. That makes no sense unless they too have been warned. I could only hear their parties when I walked past with the dogs.

We had the grandkids all day yesterday. Eight hours! We love them to bits but it’s nice when mum and dad collect them. They are 3 and 6. Ella is the eldest. She was a little bugger for a while a couple of years ago but is great kid. Very smart. Quite cheeky but in a funny way. A while ago we were playing and smelled something. I asked her if she had farted. Without any hesitation she replied, “No Granddad it’s your breath!”. The little sod was only 4!

Ivy can be great as long as she is getting her own way. If she isn’t she starts crying. I noticed when she does it there are no tears. She has learned that she gets her own way if she stropps. Her mum lets her get away with murder and Ivy plays her like a fiddle. So obviously she tries it with other people. Grandma is a bit of a soft touch too but “Daddad” isn’t playing that shit. Sue had a hairdressers appointment just after lunch. Very convenient! Five minutes after she had left Ivy climbed onto my lap, stuck her face in front of mine and started crying. She was saying something but I couldn’t tell what it was through all the wailing. I sad to Ella that I couldn’t tell what Ivy was saying. Ella said that she was saying she was hungry. I asked Ivy if she was hungry. With her bottom lip sticking out she nodded. I asked her if it hurt. She looked a bit puzzled and shook her head.

Well stop crying then!

Instant silence.

Later in the day we were all in the garden. Ivy discovered that one of the plastic chairs made an annoying noise if she rocked it back and against the shed. I asked her to stop. She carried on banging. Ivy, I’ve asked you to stop. No response. I calmly took the chair from her and put it back where we keep them. Ivy stropped. BIG strop. I walked up to her, bent down so I was on her level and quietly said to her that when Granddad says to stop doing something, you STOP.

The volume of the strop increased. Ivy, did you hurt yourself? She sulkily shook her head.

Well stop crying then!

Instant silence.

I didn’t get a hug when her mum came to pick them up but she’ll get over it.

I traded the US Open final last night. I was favouring Osaka. Azarenka started quickly. VERY quickly. She seemed to be a little over psyched. She was marching around between points. In fact she was doing everything between points quickly and was playing at 200 mph. It was working well for her. She hardly made any errors in the set. Hardly missed any first serves and Osaka didn’t get many chances. She was making a lot of “unforced” errors but it was Azarenka that was forcing her to take risks. I had backed Osaka when she went 2-0 down. She did hold her next service game but that was the only game she won in the set.

I felt that Azarenka was so pumped that if she started to make a few more mistakes that she may struggle to adjust. She was marching round as if on drugs ( obviously she wasn’t! ) and I thought that if things started to go against her she wouldn’t be able to slow her brain down and things could go against her quickly.

At the start of the second set she was immediately missing 1st serves. She still held but Osaka took her to 30-30. In the next game Osaka was broken again. When a player is a set and a break ahead it is an automatic lay for me. Their level frequently drops in that situation. I added to my position on Osaka. I had also laid Azarenka after the set. Azarenka started to make a few more mistakes and that allowed Osaka to get into the match. Azarenka only held her serve 1 more time in the set.

The momentum was with Osaka. She took a 4-1 lead in the third set and looked to be cruising to the title. When Azarenka served at 1-4 Osaka had 4 break points but Azarenka held and then broke the Osaka serve. Another break for Osaka gave her the chance to serve for the title which she did fairly comfortably. That was a great end to a long day!

Much quieter today. Sue’s at work, the housework’s done and the dogs have had their first walk. I don’t expect the mens final to be as entertaining but I’ll be watching it. I’m wanting a much better price on Thiem before I get involved.

Good luck.