Betting.
This unusual flurry of activity is not just because the TV is f.cked but also because an endless camel train of visitors is making its way towards me and the first, although only my husband, will arrive in two days time. After which I will probably write nothing.

I forget mostly that my world is not that of others. For example, the man turned up finally to mend the aerial and, unlike, say, a 'normal' house ... my aerial is two fields away. With hundreds of yards of cable, part of which is buried as it passes across gateways or disappears behind barbed wire fences into waist high brack3n. By chance it wasn't raining so the expedition had a certain charm, to start with. Obviously I couldn't let him drag off on his own so when he said 'We'll start by checking the junction boxes', I put on strong waterproof shoes. Since I last looked, about four years ago, every junction box was now buried in a thicket of vicious nettles. He stood there firmly without moving and even I felt that it was fair enough. I made a little path to each box with only the protection of a small wodge of tissue I had found in my pocket. All fine. 'It's the one on the aerial itself then'. As we approached over the ridge the aerial was invisible. 'F.ck', we said in unison. The aerial lives in its own little fenced enclosure ... which was now a small wood .. smothered and entwined by several years growth of brambles. There was no way. I like to show tradesmen that I am super-reasonable and worth their bothering to be nice to me and come back in two days even though they are rushed off their feet mending every other aerial in the county. So I said immediately, 'Okay, so this is impossible and if I cut all the brambles down you could come back in a day or two and mend it really easily ... and charge me for both visits'. To which he replied, 'All right then'. This was a huge victory though maybe not to the untrained eye. Anyone else would have had to wait another week. So I have spent the whole afternoon with massive 'loppers' and thorn-proof gauntlets and it was agonisingly prickly and sweaty and .. horrible.

I meant to write about betting as I have just discovered the pleasures. Years ago I think I wrote some posts about how I used to work in a smart gambl1ng club near Gr0sven0r Square when I was nineteen. This cured me of any idea that gambl1ng was either romantic or that the average person ever made any long term money at it. So, the happy recent surprise that bett1ng teeny amounts of money on all sorts of things .. and doing it on-line ... is massive fun. I now have my account with W1ll1am H1ll - England's finest. I put fifty pounds in to start and promised myself that if I lost it I would stop. But as I only bet in one pounds .. I am still there. Also, I win consistently at horse r@cing. This is going to sound really annoying but I choose the horses because the names on the lists 'speak' to me. What can I say? During Asc0t a few weeks ago I picked the first or second in nearly every race of the three days that I bothered to do it. I know nothing about horse racing whatsoever. As I was only betting a pound I won practically nothing overall - but still. Okay, this is the start of the slippery slope and when I was young I saw enough of that so I have backed off. But still .... suppose I was somehow psychic and suppose just as a test I put on TEN pounds each time? Interesting ... but suppose I was somehow deluded ... and suppose I quite soon lost quite a lot of money ... hmmm ... which is the most likely?
- posted by Iris @ 7/08/2005 12:50:00 AM comment