Winning Stuff

When people win something they always say "Wow, I never win anything!".

I said that a few weeks ago, along with a few "bloody hell(s)". My daughters weren't in the same room I might add.

I was quite excited because I won £300 worth of Boden vouchers. Paul's initial reaction was that it wasn't real. I found this thought thoroughly depressing (and on consideration highly likely), but for once it actually wasn't spam, but a genuine £300 Boden voucher. Apparently I'd won by joining Dorset Cereal's mailing list (evidently one has to look chic while eating muesli) and subsequently being picked out of an electronic hat. I had been trying to win a campervan but hey ho.

I was seriously chuffed. We'll set aside for now the fact that you can't exactly buy a lot with £300 worth of Boden money. About one pair of boots and a cardigan or 84 pairs of socks if you're interested. But even so £300 is quite a prize.

Then I entered a small raffle and won a night in the Sitwell Arms in Renishaw. Admittedly I can't go on any useful kind of night and I have to have used it within about a fortnight but that's not the point.

People kept telling me that winnings come in threes. Today on Twitter the theatre asked a very quick easy question, I tweeted back and immediately won tickets to see Lungs at the Crucible on Monday. Ok I'm guessing that it wasn't exactly a sold out show but still. It's a brand new show directed by Richard Wilson and since we spent a small fortune last week on comedians and babysitters not one I would have got to see in a hurry.

Whilst writing this I've also remembered I won a puppet on a facebook page not so long ago. And a gym pass and a bottle of wine in recent small raffles.

So I've decided there must be some kind of strategy to this competition thing.

1. I will continue to join mailing lists if there is a semi-decent prize, especially if I stumble across the page and prize as surely that means the odds are better. I may not bother to enter if it's an excellent prize - hardly seems worth the effort but then again it might be free.

2. I will continue to enter raffles at the small events I do (if I have actually made a small amount of profit at the event of course). I am much more likely to enter if the prizes are a little bit crap and the number of event attendants is low as the odds will be considerably better. Even though I may not actually want the prize.

3. I will keep a very close eye on Twitter and to a lesser extent Facebook, especially local companies.

4. I will still not buy a lottery ticket.

Please be assured. This isn't the start of a surefire gambling system that will send me into a spiral of debt and substance abuse. Well not unless I make a lot of profit selling books. Maybe by next year I'll be standing at the school fayre buying tonnes of tombola tickets in the hope of winning the Babycham.