Fat chance

As usual we won nothing. Twitter was alive with complaints about the state broadcaster's presenters talking over the numbers and full of praise for the coverage on the commercial channel la Sexta. On the telly the little girl who called the winning number was joyfully sobbing her eyes out whilst her mother, in the stalls of the same theatre, grinned all over her face. In Almansa, in the hairdresser's where the owner had handed out fractions of the ticket to her regulars, they were celebrating, in the old people's home where nearly everyone had won a woman said she was going to go and find a boyfriend and all over Spain people popped the corks on sparkling wine, toasted their good luck and danced for the TV cameras.  The usual crop of Christmas Lottery stories.

The first event of the Spanish Christmas, el Gordo, the one that hands out lots and lots of money in relatively small packages all over Spain has come and gone.

I thought I couldn't do yet another blog about the lottery until I had a look back at the December posts. All I could find are the entries from 2007  and 2006. The draw does get a mention in other years but only as a partial entry amongst talk of mince pies and polvorones. It would have been a good thing to write about but it's just after eleven in the evening now. We went out to Murcia and, to be honest, I don't feel like writing a full entry from scratch.

The 2007 post though is still pretty accurate. The boys and girls from San Ildefonso school, who sing the numbers and prizes, have different uniforms and the top prize is now 400,000€ or 323,000€ (I think) after tax but the lottery hasn't changed that much in 11 years.

I was thinking about what I'd do with my winnings just before I got up this morning. Pretty basic stuff, a new motor, a bit of driving around Spain and probably back to Cartagena. Not a sausage though, as I said. I suppose I could buy a ticket for el Niño in January. Different but similar. Still enough for a new car.