Comping on fumes

The last few months have been lean. A perfect storm of distracting obligations and disobliging extractions (to say nothing of the distracting ablutions and obligatory excretions) has left me with little time for comping, and - inevitably - even less time for winning.

In many respects, that’s cool - me and comping enjoy an open relationship these days, so we know we’ll always be there for each other, even if only to pick up the pieces after one of us (ie me) has an extended but ultimately unsatisfying fling with, say, work or school holidays. But on the other hand: prizes.

To be sure, this blog has never been based on winning stories alone. Until this year, however, that was an editorial decision. This year is three-quartes done, and so far my biggest wins have been a set of imploding headphones and a football shirt that I’m currently too fat for.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, there was a Peperami Fanimal, which lost its arm after five minutes with my youngest, and tickets to one of the pre-season friendlies at Carrow Road, where my view of the pitch was perfectly impeded by one of the scant few barriers in the stadium and the aforementioned child dragged me to the lav at the exact moment of the only goal.

For this reason, I’ve had to dig deep this summer - which is to say, deep into the pot of prizes past
(it’s not literally a pot, of course; it’s a punched pocket full of unredeemed gift cards and vouchers, but you get the point).

As you may have picked up from previous posts, we’ve blown our every last penny on a loft conversion. We’re now in the process of blowing other people’s pennies on it as well. Financially speaking, this kind of thing doesn’t pair well with having a family holiday, and for this reason we’ve foregone that pleasure this summer.  Well, the kids have gone without; I redeemed one of last year’s prizes so the grownups could enjoy a night in the Sheffield Jury’s Inn. I’m well aware that’s not everyone’s idea of the vida loca, but as any parent will tell you, a night sans enfants is a night sans enfants.

For a minute, it looked like it might be sans enfants but avec leaky aircon, but the staff were having none of that, and upgraded us to an executive room, complete with biscuits and fizzy water. There was also a mini-fridge, but my wife forbade me to touch within, just in case of punitive minibar sensors. For the record, I don’t think two Coke cans and a couple of Kit-Kats constitutes a minibar, but I am an obedient spouse and this bridge remained uncrossed. I did, however, pocket the stationery while she wasn’t looking.

Yeah, you read it right: Executive Room!

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and we were repatriated with our issue the next morning, although not before I breakfasted with admirable restraint, in the hope that I might somehow squeeze back into the aforementioned football shirt before the start of the 2023 season.

So, that was our summer treat, but what about the kids? Well, let’s not beat around the bush: I was never going to waste a night out on them - I’m yet to recover from their last hotel experience. But equally, I wasn’t going to see them go without either. To that end, I dug up the two Go Ape vouchers I won from Cadbury last summer, and took the lads up to Temple Newsam.

For the uninitiated, the whole point of Go Ape is to take a nice walk in the woods and inject it with a suggestion of peril by elevating it 20 feet above the ground. It’s the sort of thing I would have loved as a boy, back before I learned that being scared of heights is actually one of the more sensible phobias out there. In this respect, it turns out that my youngest is rather precocious with his fears, and after beginning the course in a state of abject dread, managed to get three-quarters of the way round before being over-faced, breaking down into freakin’ shriekin’ nuts-off wails, and having to be rescued by one of the staff. Thankfully children have short memories and he appears to have forgiven me.

Making the little one eat peril for breakfast ... or afternoon tea at any rate

As for my own wire-fu technique, I fluffed my first two attempts with the zip-line, resulting in a puffy pinkie and intermittent musculoskeletal chest pain, but that aside, I was blazing aces.

You see, the great thing about a being a comper is that you can be a winner even when you’re not winning. This year might well have been my worst ever for wins, but it hasn’t been at all bad for prizes!

How has your year been going, and how do you cope with the dry season? Let me know in the comments below!