Winning Streak

Over the years I’ve sent in a few grand prize envelopes to Winning Streak. I’ve collected the required letters for whatever game they’ve been running, knowing I’d end up with a half dozen of one letter while waiting patiently for the one they’ve cunningly made rare to keep you buying tickets. However, I’ve never got the call to come into studio to play the game. To be honest, it’s probably just as well. I’ve a shocking crush on Marty Whelan, I’d have to win big on the wheel to make up for the certain mortification I’d do myself by falling all over him.

Then a few weeks ago, I was invited to a friend’s book launch and who was there only my pal Marty. As soon as I spotted him, I started to feel a bit flushed. I tried to counsel myself down from going over and I very nearly did, but then I kind of ended up beside him in the queue to get our books signed. It would have been plain rude not to say hello. I thought I’d be able to leave it at that but the old rogue is a desperate flirt and sure we ended up having a lovely chat. In case you don’t believe me here’s a little photographic evidence. I’ll put it up beside the photo I have of Gay Byrne and myself. Baz Ashmawy better look out, I’m coming after him next for my gallery of silver foxes.

Despite not getting to spin the wheel with Marty, I consider myself a very lucky person. I won a pair of Timberland hiking boots about 25 years ago through a Volvic water competition. There’s a lovely painting by a local artist hanging at home which I won in a Christmas fair. On the Marianne Finucane Show I won a hefty book token in a writing competition. Then there was my previously blogged about appearance on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. Fortune favours those who enter the draw, I suppose.

Of course, I’ve also had spectacular examples of bad luck in my life, but I choose to ignore them. I guess, considering yourself lucky or unlucky comes down to disposition rather than fact.

When I saw the competition running at the moment in the Irish Times, entitled Dine Out For A Year, I got very excited. Could this possibly be twelve months off kitchen duties, it’s not, it’s even better. The prize is a series of vouchers for dinner for two in twelve top restaurants around Ireland, allowing you to eat out once a month for a year experiencing the best of Irish food and hospitality.

Twelve tokens are needed to enter, one appearing in each day’s paper during November. The only snag is that we only get a Saturday newspaper, so how to get my hands on the other tokens got me thinking. There’s something in the air on our road, living into your 80s is nothing, we have several nonagenarians, and one who is set to become a centenarian in the new year. They are an active and inspiring bunch who we’ve always been friendly with, but the last year and half has increased our neighbourliness.

Around 4am in the morning I hear a van park outside as it delivers the Irish Times to many of these neighbours. They have it to look forward to with their breakfast, before they head out for their walk or tackle a bit of gardening. So, I knew that my road was awash with tokens and decided Phillipa was the one I’d ask. Phillipa is one of our younger neighbours at only 91, she has the very good fortune of being robustly sound in mind and body. She’s fiercely independent and capable and takes a great interest in life.

I rang to see if she could help me in my search for tokens and unsurprisingly, she said she’d be delighted to. Together we went through her green bin, moving aside cartons and packaging to dig out newspapers with the golden tokens. She’d open it up, I’d cut it out, she’d dig deeper asking me to keep a tally on how many more were needed. We counted them out, 12, we had enough to enter.

Phillipa, it turns out, is also a very lucky person. She told me that herself and her husband won a trip to London when Ryanair was just launched and decided to take up the prize quickly in case they went bust. She is lucky, it may be one of the few times Michael O’Leary gave something away for free. Another time, she told me, she won a prize on Lyric FM. I assumed it was tickets to a concert, I was half right, it turned out to be an all-expenses paid holiday to Austria with tickets to The Saltsburg Festival.

Between her good fortune and mine, it’s a dead cert that I’ll win the prize. Twelve vouchers for some of the finest restaurants in Cork, Mayo, Waterford, Antrim, Derry, Sligo, Leitrim, Limerick, two in Galway and two in Dublin.

Mr B thinks he’s a shoe-in as my plus one for all of these meals. He’ll definitely get invited to a few but I’ve promised Phillipa her pick of the Dublin restaurants, if, no, when, we win the prize.