Beware strange men

Ann answered a knock at the door this morning to a man offering to trim our large maple tree. It does cause a lot of work from the vast quantity of leaves and seeds that fall, plus constant birds' mess on the parked cars. We've had it trimmed a couple of times when branches were overgrowing the road or getting too close to the house, but it's not too bad at the moment. I'm not supposed to even answer the door at the moment, but the man was very persistent so to try and get rid of him, Ann told him we didn't need it cutting at present, but we were thinking of having it cut down at the end of the year. He immediately countered by saying he'd give a quote to cut it down, so to try and put him off Ann said she'd have to speak to me. A little later, he came back so I answered the door.

"I'm working in the neighbourhood," he said, "so I can do it for a good price. It would normally be £450, but I can cut it down to the ground today for £350." I said I'd have to think about it, and would call him back if I decided to have it done. "I'll tell you what," he then said, "I'm just finishing your neighbour's tree, so I can do it for a bargain price of £320, and take away the bits."

I still said no, and asked him which neighbour, "Is it Number 1 opposite?"

"Yes," he said, "I'm working at Number 1." I told Ann, and went upstairs to look while she went outside to see if she could see where he was working. There was no sign of him, then Ann came in and said, "I was looking at the house opposite, and suddenly saw a big Number 2. We are Number 1!"

This lockdown is certainly addling our brains. "Well, it was a good trick question to set him," I said defensively. "He fell straight into it - he didn't realise it couldn't have been Number 1 either." Later, we found a message on the Hundon Facebook page warning that he was touring the village looking for work, but also looking for somewhere to dump his rubbish. I think if he had cut down our tree, he would have left the bits on our drive, telling us he'd be back later to clear them up!

My hair was beginning to look more scraggy than Boris's, for it hadn't been cut for several weeks. Today, Ann volunteered to trim it. In her youth, Ann had a Saturday job in a salon, so she has some experience, and I'm pleased to say she did a very good job. Meanwhile, we continue to enjoy the box of wines Edwin and Andre sent us (see Enjoying lockdown), and pondering Boris's ambiguous message about whether we can go out or not, to sit on a beach of picnic (but not in any beauty spots), and what shops may open when. He has managed to make the whole process sound as confusing as it ever was, with ministers contradicting each other and no clear instruction whatsoever. I think the lockdown has addled his brain too.