Diary

It can sometimes be difficult to know the latest details of the lockdown rules. As I have said before due to Sue working on the Covid ward we have been extra careful especially when it came to Michelle, Paul (Son in Law) and the kids. Sue had arranged to go and see them this morning. She had initially said that as only one grandparent was allowed to visit inside the house could I drop her off and pick her up later? That didn’t sound right to me. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had got the rule changes wrong. She announced that the social distancing rules had changed to 1 metre about 3 weeks before it actually changed. A quick google search showed that it wasn’t just 1 grandparent. You can visit another family in their home. I knew she wanted to have time with Michelle on her own so they can catch up with all the family gossip etc so I agreed to drop her off. On Sunday Sue said I was allowed to go into their house when I went to pick her up. If I went after 3 pm I could see Ella when she got home from school.

I arrived just before 3. Michelle had gone to pick Ella up. I called Sue to check I was OK to go in. Her and Michelle have always been like a private girls club. They arrange things between themselves and are both control freaks (though to different degrees). I don’t know if that is also the case with non step parent families but I just go along with it after all these years. Maybe its just step dad’s who get the mushroom treatment. Anyway I walked into the hallway and 3 year old Ivy came running down the hall with her arms wide. “DADDAAADD!” As far as I knew we were still keeping a distance. I didn’t want to upset her by pushing her away. Sue called out from the living room. “We’re allowed cuddles!”

I wasn’t arguing. Lockdown hasn’t been that bad for me but something I have REALLY missed is these two little girls. Ivy was clearly very happy to be able to climb all over her personal climbing frame again. It was an amazing feeling. I had about 15 minutes to play with Ivy before Ella got home. Ella also likes to climb granddad but also starts her hugs with a running jump. She has knocked my over a few times when I was kneeling down and wasn’t paying attention. I was paying attention today. I caught her and she wrapped her arms and legs around me. After a few minutes it almost felt like the last few months never happened.

The only matches today that seemed to be worth posting about were at the Thiem’s Seven Exhibition. There are some decent players taking part so check the blog for those this week.

Apparently Tesco are removing social distancing controls from store on Wednesday. There will be no controls of the number of people allowed in the stores. No one way system around the store and no control of the queuing at the tills. There is still the “one metre plus” rule that, let’s face it, the majority of people are going to ignore. I’ll try to stick to the quieter times to shop which is usually what I do anyway.

TradeShark members should look out for something new that’s coming to the members pages. If you want a sneak peak here is the link. You will need to be a Tradeshark members or a subscriber to the trading tips emails to access it.

Stay safe.

 

So the pubs reopened on Saturday. I must admit I don’t understand the “desperation” to get back to the pub and even less so to get back to the pub on a Saturday night. It can’t be just to see your mates again as that has been possible for a while. Judging by some of the photo’s and videos from the weekend the bulk of those desperate to get back to the pub just wanted to get pissed. It’s not the same doing that at home. If you get a bit angry about something you don’t want to smash your own property up do you? I can’t remember the last time I went into town on a Saturday. There are always fights, stabbings and god knows what else. It’s like the Purge UK.

I was pleasantly surprised that our local was very quiet on both nights. I had expected that when I took the dogs out we would be stepping over puke and maybe even the pukers but we hardly saw a soul. I suppose if the pub has had lockins during lockdown the regulars didn’t feel the same desperation as drunks elsewhere.

On Friday I had an offer of some help with my site’s SEO. Nat has many years of experience in SEO and had just joined TradeShark Tennis. She made some good suggestions. Some of them didn’t make total sense although it is wise to listen to people with more experience than yourself. She was pretty insistent that it needed a header image. I had purposely done away with the header image when I redesigned the site as I wanted it look different and have a clean look. I had replaced it with, in my mind, something similar but I gave in and added a header image so people knew it was my site and exactly what the subject is. I named the image with the keyword that I was trying to rank for. I don’t know if that made the difference or whether it also had something to do with increased traffic due to me posting some match tips but by Saturday morning the site had moved from number 2 to number 1. That in turn increased organic traffic to the site (traffic from google). Thanks Nat!

I have had one of the laziest weekends on record. I aim to post some advice for selected exhibition matches until the season starts on the 3rd of August. It doesn’t look like there is much to look at today though. Betfair have been a little sluggish to react to requests to get markets up for some of the matches.

I barely touched the laptop yesterday evening. We decided that we were going to have a pizza and film night in bed. I took the dogs out at 9 pm rather than the usual 10:30 to 11:30 start time. I ordered the food when I got back. They normally deliver in about 30 minutes even though you get given a 1 hour delivery time. Not last night. 11:15! I did get an email saying they were running a little late but when it got to 11 pm I rang them. They must have been short of drivers but to be fair they waited to cook the food so that it arrived hot. By 11 pm we had only just settled on what film we were going to watch. It was the Conjuring which we thought we had seen before but neither of us remembered it. The food was worth waiting for. A “Jack Daniels” pizza, onion rings and chicken dippers. We had also ordered cheesy chips to get it over the £15 minimum order. The first time I ordered the JD pizza it was because I was curious as to whether it would taste of Jack Daniels. It doesn’t but is very tasty and has meatballs on it!

I don’t have a great deal planned for today. One of my members made a suggestion for an addition to the trading guide which I will be looking into today.

The offer of 1 month of free trading tips emails will end on the 14th. It seems a bit of a random date but I just went for a date halfway through July! With the tennis coming back properly from August there will be more interest in the site anyway so I won’t need a promo. A LOT of people have signed up in the last few weeks.

Stay safe.