Tag Archives: lottery win

Day 127

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I failed to win last night’s lottery draw and forgot to buy a ticket for tonight. As a result I am £2.50 poorer than I would have been if I hadn’t bothered at all. Normally I don’t bother, but the thought of winning £160,000,000 tempted me into buying a ticket.

This means that plans to live in an air-conditioned bubble and exist renewable energy will have to be put on hold.

It’s strange how plans change. If I’d won the lottery when I was 24, sports cars, wine, women and song would have featured heavily in my plans. If I’d won at 44 my plans would have centred round Julia and the kids. Now, at 64, I appear to have changed into a slightly demented hermit. The funny thing is that I’m happy with the idea and am starting to see where Elon Musk gets his ideas from.

I’m not even sure if I’d want to leave work if I won the lottery. It’s not like it’s unpleasant being a coin dealer, and I don’t have much else to do. Since Covid and the rise in fuel prices caused by the war in Ukraine I don’t want to go out as much so if it wasn’t for work life would be very dull. I don’t even do my own shopping these days.

I’m not sure there’s much we really need. I doubt I’ll be allowed to build an air-conditioned bubble so I’ll probably just buy a bungalow with solar panels. It’s not quite so much fun as a sports car but sometimes you have to face facts – we have to save the earth, and with my knees I really don’t see a sports car as a realistic option these days.

Looks Like I Might Be Lucky Again

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Work was work. It was neither good nor bad, though at one point it did grow a little frustrating. One customer is telling us we have charged him too much postage and packing, despite us already reducing it a lot because he has bought in bulk. I think he forgets that eBay charges us commission on the P&P too, and there is a cost to putting a parcel together.

Another want a tracking number, despite the fact he didn’t pay for a tracked postal service.

And yet another is hanging on and making excuses for not paying.

I can see some of this heading towards “lost” parcels and refunds. It strikes me that the world is becoming a less honest place and fewer and fewer people are prepared to accept responsibility for their own mistakes.

After work I went to pick a prescription up. This, for once, didn’t involve much queueing – I was able to get into the shop immediately and once the two people in front had been served my prescription was dispensed quickly and accurately. All the staff were wearing masks too, which had not been the case last time.

We had a TESCO delivery, which went well, though they insist on using the large bags that I find difficult with my arthritis.

I had an email to tell me about my Lottery win (no, I didn’t win the £10,000 a month for 30 years that I dream of. I won £5. I will invest it in more tickets.  At least it’s good luck rather than bad luck.

Looks like my luck could be changing.

Then I fell asleep again and missed my midnight deadline.

Time to make sandwiches now.

Schrodinger’s Lottery Ticket

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I think the lack of exercise and exposure to fresh air and nature has had a negative effect on my frame of mind. At the risk of sounding pathetic, turning 62 didn’t exactly fill me with good cheer either.

Alexander the Great was 32 when he died, worn out by all that conquering. Napoleonwas 51 when he died and he had ruled Europe, though he ended up poisoned by his wallpaper. Philip Larkin was 63. I’m living on borrowed time and, last time I checked, have not yet achieved anything.

I still have a year to catch up with Larkin, so all is not lost – I could probably manage to become an alcoholic xenophobe, though I think the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry might elude me.

I don’t have time to bring the Persian Empire to its knees, particularly as we will be back at work soon and conquering worlds can’t be fitted into a couple of days a week. Nor, on the subject of knees, do I really have the energy to sort out Europe. That leaves the very slim chance of fame through poetry, but other than that it’s either win the Lottery or go on Love Island. The chances of winning the Lottery are 14 million to 1. Those are not good odds, but they are much better than my chances of winning Love Island.

I did actually have a lottery win last week (having started playing again during lockdown). I had an email telling me I had won a prize, but not telling me how much. The site was down so I couldn’t tell what I had won. When I went to bed I had a potential win of £10,000 a month for the next 30 years (or “the rest of my life” as I now think of it).

With that sort of money I could buy a bungalow in Suffolk (probably chosen for its proximity to a decent hospital and a first class chip shop) and have a butler.

It is a great feeling to go to bed knowing you might be waking up as a rich man. In some ways it’s like Schrodinger’s Cat, not knowing how rich I was until I woke up and switched the internet on.

So, day dawned. I snored my way through it – it’s so early at the moment. Eventually, after Julia had gone down and switched the kettle on, I peered round the duvet and decided it was time to check.

As I’m still typing this myself instead of dictating it to a secretary I’m sure you can guess how much I won. It was a fiver, which is enough for three more tickets. Yes, buying more tickets with your winnings – the mark of a true optimist.

This, of course, drives home a point about the value of money. In times gone by I would have written “in the South of France” after “secretary” in the last paragraph. Now, no matter how much money you have, you can’t outrun the virus. So is money really any use? Well, it would make life easier if I could send the butler to queue for groceries at TESCO…

butler 1

 

 

A day of strange events

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It’s been a funny old day.

It started normally, and as I parked to collect a prescription, although I did notice a police car parked by the side of the road. That’s slightly unusual.

I collected the prescription and drew cash from the nearby cash machine, which gave me four £5 notes with my cash. They don’t usually dispense fives, but these are the new plastic ones and I imagine they are trying to get them into circulation quickly.

Then I crossed the road to the jeweller’s to see them about some earrings for Julia, to find them giving statements to the police after fighting off an attempted hold up.

After buying the earrings I drove past a public toilet that appears to have been converted to a coffee shop (though it was closed). The link shows the sale was over a year ago, but I’m sure it was still up for sale last month. Maybe it was a matter of convenience, though there was reportedly no chain. I hope the new buyer is flushed with success.

Then, at the narrow entrance to the supermarket car park I had to take avoiding action as a determined elderly lady insisted on driving the wrong way and using it as an exit.

In the shop I discovered I had won the lottery last week. After buying a ticket for tonight I had sixty pence left. I’m still deciding whether to blow it on partying or invest it for my old age.

Finally arriving at work, I did some paperwork and assembled the wormery for next week (which will be described later) the day became more normal.

 

 

 

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