Diary

It’s been a quiet weekend so far. Most of Saturday was spent watching films although I did trade a few of the Belarus football matches. They like their first half goals! There were tennis matches on in the German exhibition but as I am spending weekends with Sue I am not at my desk. I need to concentrate when trading tennis.

I did hear from the garden centre that I have ordered some plants and compost from. They have picked the order and sent me a photo of the receipt along with a payment link. The order wasn’t exactly what I had emailed to them but looking through it we are getting more for our money. We are also getting an extra bag of compost for virtually no more money. Now I just have to wait for the delivery. I’m hopeful for Monday!

I took the dogs out around 10:30 pm. We bumped into our Nemesis. Corgi Man! He is in his 60’s and never has his corgi on a lead. The dog is out of control and always runs up to my dogs and bounces around them. I had a bit of a battle with this twat a couple of years ago. My dogs would be so stressed by not being able to get at this dog that the rest of the walk would be spent calming them down.

My comments to him escalated over a few months from, “You need to put your dog on a lead” to, “Get your fucking dog under control or I will!” I finally got through to him when our meeting was right outside his house. He again allowed his dog to approach us and wind my 2 up. I was pulled into the street in front of a car. He was stood in the road laughing. I must admit I flipped. I yelled at him that he was a fucking ignorant old twat and that he wasn’t fit to own a dog. All his neighbours came to their windows and he was finally embarrassed. From that night he started to change his ways. The dog is still never on a lead but he at least now tries to keep it away from us, sometimes picking his dog up. That’s all I wanted. Before he would laugh when other people’s dogs got stressed out because of his mutt.

Last night we bumped into one another coming round a corner. He didn’t have time to call Jacko back (not that Jacko takes the slightest notice). I had seen Jacko’s flashing red lights on his collar and quickly shortened the leads on my dogs. I just kept walking. Since he has tried to make an effort to keep Jacko awy we have had a few chats over the last few months although his only topics of conversation are about how nice an evening it is ( even if it’s pissing down ) and about how’s the tennis going?

Today has been more of the same really. A little more profit from the Belarus matches. I’m up £1k in the last few days with reduced stakes. Not too shabby.

We Facetimed the grand kids this morning. Our daughter seems to be doing pretty well with the home schooling.

Sue was chatting to one of the neighbours on Facebook and apparently there is a street party planned for tomorrow afternoon! What the hell?? Friday is VE day and there is a minute’s silence at 11am and something else at 3 pm (a toast?). I think tomorrow’s “party” will just be the group of 3 houses who have had parties most nights. They’re just moving it into the front gardens now. Unbelievable!

Stay safe.

 

Last night there was an incident further up the street. Two ambulances plus a rapid response unit and a police van. It wasn’t easy to see which house it was (even by standing on my chair and opening the blinds!) but one of the neighbours was bundled into the back of one of the ambulances by police officers. Best guess is it was a domestic that got out of hand. Some of the other neighbours were in the street and seemed to have forgotten all about social distancing. The ambulance crews were all standing together and these neighbours were getting up close to them to be nosey. I’d have asked them to move away. They are the sort of people that you would want to keep a distance from anyway even without a coronavirus crisis going on. Unless of course you can hold your breath for 5 minutes and don’t mind burning your clothes afterwards.

Today is bin collection day. That’s how interesting my life is at the minute. I am writing about bin day! Our recycling wheelie bin is kept in the back garden near the back door. It makes it easier to put food containers etc in it as the kitchen door is next to it. I have to wheel it out of the back gate and down the side of the house to put it out on the street. The side of house had half a dozen bags of garden clippings and weeds etc so I decided that I would get up a bit earlier than normal and take the bags up to the woods before anyone was about. I could then wheel the bin out to the front of the house for the 7am collection. Sounds like a plan.

I set my alarm for 5:45. My bedside alarm plays birdsong. It wakes you up in a gentler way than a harsh buzzer or loud beeping. This morning I woke up and after a few seconds realised that my alarm was going off. I pressed the off button on the top but it kept going. It starts off quietly and slowly increases the volume. I pressed all the buttons on the alarm/clock. It kept ringing. I was confused. Why wouldn’t it switch off? I pressed all the buttons including those on the back that you use to change time and alarm settings. By this time the alarm was pretty loud. I didn’t want to wake Sue up. I pulled the power cord out from the back of the clock. The alarm was still sounding and getting even louder. What the hell?? Am I dreaming? By this time Sue was starting to wake up. I shoved the clock under the duvet which seemed to make no difference to the volume. “Sorry I can’t turn the fucking thing off!”

It was at that point that I remembered that I had set my phone alarm last night. NOT the alarm clock. The realisation came a split second before I smashed the clock against the wall. I told you it was a much gentler way to be woken up!

The Tennis Point Exhibition started this morning in Germany. I don’t trade exhibitions but was interested to watch it. The first match was already in play when I got to my desk and the favourite was a break up and cruising. I traded the next 4 with much reduced stakes. Liquidity wasn’t amazing but it was enough to trade them. I didn’t have a strong opinion on the 4th one but thought the slight underdog had the edge. I don’t usually get involved if i do not have a strong feeling on how it will go but the market made the decision for me. The pre match favourite dropped from 1.70 to 1.30 without a break of serve. That was after just 3 games! It would have been rude not to lay when my pre match assessment gave a slight edge to the other guy. The underdog, Haerteis broke serve and took the set. He also took an early break in set 2. Job done. Two hundred quid from low stakes to add to my football profit. I really enjoyed today. I couldn’t stop yawning though. I haven’t concentrated as much for weeks!

I still hadn’t heard from the local garden centre about an email order I placed on Saturday. I couldn’t get through on the phone so I tracked them down on Facebook and Twitter but they didn’t seem to have replied to anyone on either account for a few days. I tried the phone number again and eventually got through. The guy I spoke to said it has “probably been picked”. They just have to get to it. He reckons someone will be getting back to me by Sunday at the latest to confirm if the order is complete or if there were items they couldn’t provide. He apologised for the long wait. I knew they would be snowed under. Everyone and their dog is ordering stuff for their gardens. I mean, what else can they do when stuck at home?

I have been amazed at how relaxed Sue has been in the first week of her holiday. If I can get the plants for next week she will have something to keep her mind off everything else. She came upstairs this morning and called out, “Paul, you’ve GOT to see this! I just pissed myself!”. Why would I want to see THAT??. Obviously she had just watched a funny video on Facebook but I was worried for a second or two.

The last couple of tennis matches don’t look like they will provide much opportunity so I’m probably done for the day.

I must remember to put the body cam on tonight for the dog walk. I forgot last night until I was already outside and couldn’t be bothered to go back inside for it. Big mistake! Within the first 5 minutes we had seen 3 different foxes. All were very close. All stopped for a few seconds to watch us and all were under street lights and would have been captured on the cam. FFS!

I’ll get the little twats. You see if I don’t.

Stay safe.