TradeShark Diary, 11th April 2020

I didn’t post this last night as we were having a film and pizza night. We have used a particular pizza delivery service for years but recently had a menu put through the door and tried a new place. The quality was superb and I thought we had agreed to bin the other place off. Last night Sue was in charge of ordering. She was in the kitchen and calling through to the living room about what we were ordering. I asked why we weren’t using the new place. She said something about not having their menu but when she got on the phone she started by thanking the guy for the free pizzas that they had delivered to the hospital. The cynic in me thought she was trying for a free pizza! It is obviously a great gesture that a lot of places are sending free food to hospital. We didn’t get a free pizza and rightly so.

When the doorbell rang I went to answer the door and jokingly said that I wondered how far down the garden the delivery guy would be. I opened the door and was surprised that the guy was right up to the house. I took a step back and he seemed to get the message. The food was awful. I have thrown their menu away.

It had been a quiet day. I cleaned the front of the house. Front door, downstairs loo window and the thing above them. Its not a porch but just a little roof to keep the rain off if you’re knocking on the door. I can’t be arsed thinking for too long about what its called! Then the front path needed weeding. I used a knife to clear the crap from between the flags. It looked a bit of a mess as I hadn’t done it for ages. Months of rainy weather was growing the bloody things faster than I was finding motivation to clear them.

Anyway everything was looking much neater. Swept and all the mess bagged up. I took a quick look down the side path. It never needs much doing down there. Oh for fuck sake. Weeds galore coming up between the house and the path. Another 20 minutes later and I was done. I’ll mow the grass another day. I don’t want to peak too soon.

There had been a lot of positive feedback about the interview/webinar with Tony Hargraves. Tony gets a lot of flack and abuse and when he posted about the interview on Twitter he sent me a message telling me to get ready for the abusive emails and tweets. Some one had agreed to do an interview with Tony a few months ago and had pulled out due to all the abuse he got. So far I haven’t had a single negative comment (I’ll probably get some now!). One guy on Twitter said it was the best trading webinar he had seen in his 11 years of trading. I don’t know how many he has seen but it was a great compliment.

Sue was sitting in the garden and I went to join her. I thought a couple of hours in the sun reading a book seemed like a great idea. Nothing highbrow. One from Jeremy Clarkson. I managed a few pages before Sue started chatting to me.

“Oh its a lovely day to be out here. Pretty quiet so far too”

“Yep”

“Shall we have dinner in the garden? We’ll have chance before the rain comes. They have forecast thunder storms later.”

“Yeah That’ll be nice.”

“Why does Charlie (the dog) lie in the sun? We need to get him in the shade. He must be boiling. Can you call him? He never listens to me.”

“Charlie c’mere mate. Lie down.”

“See? He always do what you ask him. Molly does too.(the other dog) She’s a real Daddy’s girl. Why is that? Why don’t they listen to me?”

“Dunno.”

I had been on the same page for 10 minutes. Sue then asked if she could put the radio on.

“Of course. Why are you asking me?”.

The radio went on. They were doing a count down of the top 300 songs of the 20th Century or something like that. I was reading the pages of the book but all that my brain was registering was the words of the various songs.

After about 20 minutes I closed the book and put it on the table.

“Isn’t it a good book?”

“It’s not grabbing me, no”.

She had won. We chatted.

Our grand daughters have a slight problem with eczema and ordinary soap irritates their hands. My daughter had not been able to get any handwash. I hadn’t been able to get any at Tesco but when I tried the convenience store next door they had some. They had stock all over the floor as they tried to catch up with their shelf filling. I had to dig through a pile of full cases and found some handwash. I bought a couple.

Sue asked if we could give one of them to the kids. Of course that wasn’t a problem. When do you want me to take them? She smiled. Ah she meant now. Sue put the handwash and a few other toiletries that Michelle hadn’t been able to get in a carrier bag. Would that qualify as an important journey? If I had been stopped it would depend on the copper that stopped me. I would have argued that it was to relieve two small kids of an upsetting skin problem. I wouldn’t come into contact with anyone and would leave the bag on the doorstep.

As it turned out the roads were very quiet for 5pm on a bank holiday weekend. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone. My good deed for the day.

The film we watched was Contagion. According to Netflix its one of the most popular films at the moment! Quite a few similarities with the current crisis. It finished around 11:30. I took the dogs out straight after and for a few seconds on the door step I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a film and was till going on!

Stay safe.