Probabilities

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Christmas dinner. We stuffed our faces, of course, and drank quite a lot (we'd left the car at home), and then, while everybody was feeling mellow, they brought round the raffle tickets.

Now I'm not a fan of national lotteries. Tickets for the big Christmas lottery in Spain cost €20, and your chances of winning are tiny. I think I've probably got a reputation in the staff room for refusing to join syndicates. I have to stop myself from banging on about the remoteness of your chances. If you buy a ticket for the British lottery on Monday, you are more likely to drop down dead before Saturday than you are to scoop the jackpot. But at the dinner I bought two strips of tickets for €20. Now obviously the top prize was tiny compared to the €3,000,000 of the national lottery, but literally millions of people buy national lottery tickets, and this raffle had only about 50 people entering it. Besides, any profits go towards next year's dinner.

And I won a prize - a ticket to the national lottery for today, 22nd December. I thought that was pretty funny - spending €20 to get exactly €20's worth of something I didn't actually want. It wasn't until I was on my way home that I realised I could have swapped it for a bottle of wine. Never mind, I thought, I could indulge in a few day-dreams until the draw took place and reality set in. My son announced that if we won the big prize, he wanted a PS2 and a Lego Dirt Crusher (it's a radio controlled Lego car, if you're wondering.)

Well blow me down, I've won. No, not the €3,000,000 jackpot. I only won €20. That number again. It was good for a laugh, at least.

And today my son got a good school report. This beats my lottery win any day. I'll give you three guesses what I'm going to do with my winnings.

A ChristmasTreat

I've just spent the last two days suffering from gastroenteritis, so it was a nice surprise to wake up feeling well and HUNGRY!

It was a good day to go back to work (as a classroom assistant - I must write about this some time) because it was the Christmas treat for the infants. It was raining as I drove to work, so I was a bit worried the excursion might be cancelled.

Father Christmas / Santa Claus is a very new introduction to Spain. These days he does turn up for most kids and leaves a few sweets, but the main presents arrive with the Three Kings on January 6th. Like Father Christmas, they come and say hello at Christmas parties beforehand.

Today they visited our school, handing out sweets! I must have been a good girl all year because I got two. Then we put Father Christmas hats on the kids and took them out on a road train. First a short drive into town, waving and yelling "Merry Christmas" at everyone in sight. Then we got off and went down the main street into the square, where we had a group photo taken. We carried along the main street towards the post office, with the kids handing out hand-coloured cards along the way. It was great to see random shoppers and tourists forget their tired feet and beam as a four-year-old pressed a wrinkled bit of paper on them.

When we got to the post-office, the kids posted their letters to the kings, (the first time some of them had posted a letter) and we got back on the road train for a drive down to the next village along the coast, which is the tourist beach.

Well it was great. Bemused tourists waved, and workmen digging a ditch cheered, and passing cars (and one bulldozer!) honked their horns in salute. I felt like the queen, although I knew most of it was for the kids.

But I couldn't help feeling sorry for the occasional adults who just glared. All religion apart, if you can't raise the tiniest twitch of a smile or wave for sixty-odd kids grinning at you, then I think you're sad in every sense of the word.

And in the afternoon it poured with rain.