The gambler!

Apart from the annual office sweepstake on the Grand National, I have never been inclined towards betting on horses or indeed gambling in general.  There are a number of personal reasons why I have been anti-gambling throughout my life, because I have seen up close how it has had a devastating impact on people's lives and relationships.

However, last year I decided to nervously dip my toe into the waters of the Eurovision betting market and put bets on a few songs. I managed to win some money however due to my naivety on how each-way betting worked, among other things, I ended up with a very small deficit due to the money which I bet on the other songs. 

This year I have decided to make my return to the ESC betting scene.  I've learned lessons from last year and have bet some very small amounts on a few songs to win or place in Stockholm.  Of course that will probably be the kiss of death and none of them will make top 5, but you never know! I'm not telling you which ones I've bet on - all will be revealed after the contest.  

Anyway back to the office sweepstake.  There seems to be a bit of gambling-mania in my office so all the tickets went very quickly and I missed out on a horse this year.  Then I thought, why not apply the small-bets rule which I've used for Eurovision songs and put a couple of quid on the National?  So I had a look at the list of horses and picked out three of them, putting a very small amount on each and not expecting to win anything.  One was called Gallant Oscar, one was called Goonyella, and being the long-time Take That fan that I am, I just had to choose Rule The World.

So you can imagine my excitement when Rule The World won the Grand National yesterday and Goonyella came 5th!  My combined winnings = £20, which may not seem like much to some of you, but I'm delighted considering the extremely small stake which I put on the three horses.  (Gallant Oscar wasn't so gallant after all). 

I guess you'd call it beginners luck! I'm going to spend my winnings on something special for myself. After all, it's money that I never had before, so I'm treating it like a gift and closing that gambling door again until next year's Grand National.  I'll do the same with Eurovision - if I'm lucky enough to win, then it's treat time, and that will be that, until ESC 2017. 

In the words of Kenny Rogers, you gotta "know when to walk away" from gambling.  So if that's your thing, please gamble responsibly!

In with (some more of) the new

Since my last post on here, my home-improvement efforts have continued - that's when I've not been too exhausted to function.  So there was lots of painting and decorating and preparation for having new carpeting fitted in the hall and staircase last week.  Nevertheless I'm quite happy with how much I've managed to get done over the first three months of the year.  That was the plan - to do as much as I could in those dark winter months so that by the time our "summer" comes, I can put my feet up and take it easy.  When I'm not involved in the damage-limitation of so-called gardening of course :)

There is still so much to be done at home: but it's a challenge when you do all your own painting/decorating/DIY, especially if you work full-time in a mentally demanding job, you're not as young as you used to be, and your fitness levels are a long, long way from ideal.  So I'm taking a little break from the paintbrushes and returning to the keyboard over the next couple of weeks to clear that backlog of outstanding blog posts over at EuropeCrazy  before we head off on our spring holiday (destination known and to be revealed soon)

There is also the small matter of getting fit again.  There has been no dieting, no exercising, and I haven't been in the best place emotionally so there was comfort eating.  Lots of it.  Not a good thing. But it's only April, so I've got 6 months to get in shape before the big summer holiday (destination completely unknown at this time!)