Diary

Two more sleeps 😉

It has been a busy and frustrating few days. Most of the Battle of the Brits matches gave us opportunities to make some money. That was the easy portion of the work.

Even though a lot of new members signed up during Covid the number was understandably well below the number I would expect in normal times. I thought that with a week to go before the main tours kicked off again that the rate of sign up would also increase. If anything it DEcreased. It would be easy to think that there is something wrong with the site but according to Google Search Console the number of people searching for tennis trading products took a nosedive.

It is always tricky to work out how potential customers are thinking. No one searches for tennis trading on Google if there are no proper matches on to trade. I am always tweaking the site to find the “sweetspot” of the various parts of the site. Site title. H1 header tags. What the customer sees above the “fold” when they click on the site. (what is on screen before they start to scroll). The meta description that people see in search results. You don’t have a lot of space to describe your site to entice someone to click on it.

All of those items help but the difference is tiny if no one is looking for your type of site.

I had to conclude that people were waiting until the last minute to sign up for the guide. The trading tips emails were completely different. I advised people not to sign up until Monday as that’s when the first email goes out. People started signing up on Friday.

The flood of new TradeShark Tennis members started early this morning. It would appear that the site works fine!

Sue’s working all weekend. I can’t say I’m not relieved. Some days by the time I finish work she has had a “couple” of drinks. It is worse when she is coming up to a work day. She gets very snippy. There was a news programme on the radio while we were sitting outside which was another doom and gloom piece about a second wave. She made a comment that “this is never going to end”. Here we go.

Her bad mood went from 0 to 60 in 3 insults. She said you can’t just look on google or twitter to find out the truth. I mustn’t ask her about details but next year when Covid mixes with the Flu it will possibly wipe out all civilisation. Scary stuff huh? Until she then added that she and I would probably be OK. Oh god am I going to have to father the new human race? She was pretty sheepish the next morning.

I can’t remember the last time we had the windows cleaned. The downstairs ones get done from time to time but I don’t have a ladder to reach the upstairs ones. Sue found someone on Facebook who came recommended. A tenner to do all the windows. Bargain. They came this afternoon. I opened the back gate so they didn’t have to come through the house. One guy started cleaning the living room windows. I had the dogs in that room to keep them out of the way. Charlie thought the guy was trying to break in. He was going nuts at the window. His bark is really loud. Even before social distancing when we got a takeaway delivered and Charlie barked when they knocked on the door they would move back to the entrance to the garden. “Shit he sounds big!” was a common comment. Anyway when the head window cleaner came round the back of the house he nervously knocked on the back door to ask if he could get some water. Charlie was watching him through the dog gate. He wasn’t happy. When the guy knocked on the door again when they had finished I opened the dog gate. Charlie and Molly followed me through. Molly went up to him for a bit of fuss and Charlie moved in to sniff the guy. Charlie backed away growling. He REALLY didn’t like this guy. He’s usually a very good judge of character. I’ll have to watch this one if we use them again.

Now that the outside of the windows were clean I had to clean the insides. I got them all done before the FA Cup final started apart from the living room and my office. They looked fine until the sun shone on them. Streaks all over a couple of them! I recleaned our bedroom windows and the bathroom one. The window by the back door was a nightmare. I nearly lost my mind over that small window. Everything I did made no difference to the streaks. In the end the sun went in and they looked ok. It will keep until Sunday.

I’m expecting a busy day with new signups on Sunday. Then it’s finally back to business as usual on Monday.

Stay safe.

   

Simona Halep has withdrawn from Palermo next week due to having to quarantine for 2 weeks afterwards. The tournament are trying to get an exemption for her.

https://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2020/07/simona-halep-withdraws-palermo-open-covid-19-romania-oliviero-palma-embittered/89767/

Just 1 week to go before main tour tennis returns. Seven more sleeps.

Had a quiet day yesterday until Sue asked if we can get a kitten. We have had cats for the last 18 years or so. Cats are great when they’re kittens and also throughout most of their adult life. If they get looked after well they can live a long time. We had 4 that lived around 18 years. At one point we had 9 cats in our 2 bedroom house.

We got very little pleasure from them in the last couple of years. They shed hair like crazy and were unable to clean themselves properly due to being less supple. Cleaning skid marks off the kitchen work surfaces before you can prepare food gets old really quickly. We were lucky that none of them became incontinent.

We really needed new sofa’s. Sue wanted leather ones and we agreed not to get them until the cats had died. Leather sofa’s and cat claws is not a good mix. We got the sofas last year. Now she wants a kitten. I reminded her of our agreement. Then she wanted chickens. Then a parrot. Then fish. Then a puppy.

It was Sue who pushed to get Charlie the collie cross. She saw him advertised on Facebook. Within 2 hours of me finishing work for the day we were driving over the Malvern to look at him. Less than an hour after that we were driving home with 4 month old Charlie on Sue’s lap. That is definitely NOT the way to get a dog. We were lucky with him. He’s an amazing dog. Anyway to convince me to take Charlie home Sue fed me a load of guff about how we would share the walking etc. She kept to that promise for about 6 months before it became too much trouble.

Eighteen months later our daughter and son-in-law had 2 dogs and a young baby. Molly the Trailhound was a rescue dog who had spent the first year of her life in kennels being trained to take part in cross country races. She was not house trained when she failed the selection process for Trailing and was put up for adoption. She would frequently piss and crap in the house. Not good at any time but with a small baby crawling around it was a bad situation. Michelle told Sue that they were going to have to send Molly back to the dog rescue place. Between them they came up with the idea that we would take her.

At the time I was thinking about getting a second dog. I had been having problems with my knees and the walks were causing me some pain. I thought if I could let 2 dogs off lead in the local dog field that they could tire each other out and I could shorten the walks. Trailhound Welfare advise not letting Trailhounds off lead. They are bred and trained to ignore people so that they are less likely to be interfered with when racing cross country. Molly, or Lacey’s Lass to call her by her racing name, didn’t make the grade but managed the ignoring people bit perfectly. If she was let off lead she would pick up any scent and follow it at top speed as she had been trained to do. She can cover 10 miles or more in 30 minutes.

So Sue broached the subject with me. I said I didn’t want her. I needed a dog that I could let off the lead. I also pointed out the lack of house training. I was told that she didn’t shit and piss in the house anymore and that they had been letting her off lead a bit and she hadn’t run off. Both those statements proved to be complete bullshit. I was also fed the same crap about how Sue would help out with walks.

Paul, our son-in-law brought Molly over and we took her and Charlie to the field. Molly couldn’t be let off although Paul did say that they had let her off lead a few times. I found out much later that this was strictly speaking true. What he failed to tell me was that each time they had spent several hours looking for her when she ran off.

I had been conned. Charlie and Molly got along well enough. When it looked like Molly was staying Charlie started taking all his toys and hiding them under the dining table. After a few days they were fine and are now the best of friends. It took a lot of work to get Molly into a routine as far as toileting went and also to get her reliable off lead. I can now let her off lead anywhere and in fact I can let her off lead on the late walks and can’t let Charlie off as he chases foxes.

That’s a long way of saying that I was ready if Sue ever asked to get a puppy. I explained the above points to her and said that she would get bored with a puppy just as she had with the dogs and the tropical fish. Don’t start me on the tropical fish.

Sue can’t take any level of criticism so the next couple of hours was spent listening to her giving reasons (excuses) why she doesn’t walk the dogs and insisting that she doesn’t get bored with things quickly.

What followed was the greatest mental masterstroke of our 18 year relationship.

She let slip that she actually only wanted a kitten, or rather kittens as it’s not fair to just have one. She admitted that the chickens, birds, fish and puppy were just a distraction to try to get me to say yes to kittens.

Earlier in the discussion I had said that my only reason for not wanting a kitten was the potential damage to the leather sofas. We had talked about putting throws over the sofas ( before we got them) so that the dogs could be allowed on them. Sue was totally against this idea as it would spoil the look of the living room.

So I told her that all I wanted was to make her happy. If she really wanted kittens then we would get some. I told her that I was making a huge compromise and going against what we had agreed about no more cats. I said that even though we had spent quite a bit on the new leather sofa’s that she has always wanted, we could work round that by getting some good quality throws to go over them.

I could tell from her face immediately that she didn’t like that idea. She is incredibly fussy about how everything looks. I’m surprised that I am allowed to spend as much time as I do in the living room. She went on the defensive and asked how was she supposed to know what I really thought if I kept changing my mind? I said that yes I had changed my mind but had explained the reasons. I just wanted her to be happy.

She said that I was right and we shouldn’t get any more pets. I told her that I hadn’t said that at all. I was OK with kittens as long as we protected the sofas. I said she should take a couple of days to think about it.

We spent a nice evening watching a couple of films in bed and eating crackers and pringles with dips. The following morning her first words to me were that she didn’t want kittens. It had been a silly idea.

Well if you’re sure Sweetheart. Check and mate.

Not much happening today other then a guy is coming to sort a problem with one of the sofas. This post could have been sponsored by SCS. One of the cushions has collapsed in the corner so it feels like you’re sitting in a hole. We have had to wait 4 weeks for a visit due to the lockdown. He is due any time between 7:30 and 5:30. Hopefully he gets here around lunchtime so I can go to see the grandkids this afternoon.

I haven’t seen much of interest to trade today. There is another Battle of the Brits event this week which will be good to trade.

Stay safe.