Diary

Sue’s ward at the hospital was made a Covid ward on Wednesday. There were 5 patients on there on Wednesday and 8 on Friday when Sue last worked. She is back in there today so I’ll find out later how many they have now. Worcester’s infection rate is lower than most but we have a lot of areas around us with much higher rates. There was a report in the local paper this week that they were considering putting all of Worcestershire in tier 2 but there was supposed to be a decision by Friday. I guess they decided not to do it for now.

The hospital didn’t handle the first wave very well at all. The staff on the ward had been told that when the second wave came ( they were expecting one) the staff would be given a break and a different ward would be used. That hasn’t happened. The biggest issue for us is that with her working with Covid positive cases again we won’t be seeing the grandkids. This second wave didn’t need to happen.

All our family on my side are in West Yorkshire and Wigan. Both areas are in the second tier. My parents are in their seventies and I have an aunt in her 90’s. They have been fine so far though it sounds like people are ignoring the basic rules on social distancing in Wigan. You’re never more than 5 metres from a retard.

On Wednesday I had dropped Sue off at work around 6:30am. I was halfway home and turned right at a roundabout. As I was leaving the roundabout there was a jogger crossing the road. There is a small island in the middle of the road and pedestrians usually stand there until it is clear to cross. That’s what I though this guy was doing but then he decided to jog down the middle of the road. He was alongside my car so I slowed down to let him cross. I was wary of a van who was close up behind me. The van had been very close behind me before we had got to the roundabout and I was caught between trying to let the jogger cross and not getting hit from behind. I slowed right down but the jogger was shitting himself and dithering about in the middle of the road. I decided I would drive past him but he then decided to cross in front of my car. I hit the brakes and shouted a few choice words of encouragement. He was fine and waved an apology and I wasn’t hit from behind. I thought it might make an interesting video to include in this post and checked my dash cams this morning. The back one recorded fine but the front one hasn’t been recording since January!

I have cleared the sd card and will reformat it which might sort this issue but if not I’ll have to treat myself to a new front camera. I have had it 3 years and am told they don’t usually last more than 2 years. At least I found out it wasn’t working before I actually had an accident and really needed the footage.

Trading has been pretty much drama free this week. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some crazy matches. This IS tennis after all! A bizarre one came in Ostrava between Sorribes Tormo and Sabalenka. Sabalenka was expected to win comfortably but lost the first 10 games! She then won the next 12 games to take the match. Just when you think you have women figured out…..

I’ll be putting the link up on the blog for the yearly trading tips subscriptions. 2020 subscribers who paid for the whole season will have four and a half months carried over into 2021.

It should be a quiet day today. I have a bit of housework to take care of and I want to test the dash cam.

The street has been party free for a while now. I still think the pub is ignoring the 10pm curfew but if there are people in there after that time they are keeping quiet.

That’s about it. Stay safe or stay smart of whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing.

 

It has been a pretty chilled out week. Only ATP tournaments but the trading has been pretty good. I prefer trading indoor tournaments to hard courts as the indoor surfaces are usually slower so big servers don’t have as much of an advantage. The women are back next week.

Things have continued to go well since the tennis resumed. Lots of interest in the service and a shed load of new members. I’m already looking forward to having a great full season in 2021. Hopefully the CoronaVirus doesn’t put another spanner in the works. The tournaments have been doing a good job of keeping players and officials safe. There have been a few reports of players testing positive but no real claims that it was caught at a tournament.

Cases in Worcester are going up but we are on the lower tier of social distancing rules. We are surrounded with areas with much higher rates though and there is a chance that Worcestershire will be lifted to tier 2. Cases at the local hospital are increasing but fairly slowly. Sue’s ward hasn’t been made a covid ward again just yet.

The street has been extremely quiet for a while now. The local pub allegedly ignored the first lockdown. With a 10 pm closing time imposed on pubs you’d expect if you walked past around 10 pm that you would see a load of people piling out of there. I haven’t seen a single person leave at 10. Some nights I can hear voices in the woods next to the pub so maybe they’re taking their drinks there in case they get checked upon.

One day this week Sue had gone up to bed early to watch a film on Netflix. Our daughter, son in law and grand kids all use our Netflix log in details so when Sue fired up Netflix on the bedroom’s Firestick she was greeted by a screen full of kids movies and cartoons. The Firestick is voice activated. I was at my desk in the next room sorting an issue out for a new member. Sue wanted to see the list of films so said into the remote control, “Adult films”.

She let out a sort of, “Aaaargh” noise as she was presented with a list of adult films. I didn’t know Netflix had porn on there. To be fair I couldn’t see the screen from my desk but she was insistent that it was a list of porn films. By the time I had stopped laughing at her she had got back to the main menu. I suggested she tried, “Main menu” if she wanted to get rid of the kids films in future.

I have not been putting “Stay safe” at the end of posts as I really thought we were getting to the end of the Covid issues. I think people have become complacent and also the universities were opened up way too early. I think this is going to drag on for many months. Maybe “Stay smart” might be a better sign off.