EEL Day and the Town Crier Competition on Saturday were hugely successful, thanks in large part to the warm weather, which suddenly took a turn for the worse on Sunday. It was lovely to see so many people about enjoying this rather quaint festival that ce

EEL Day and the Town Crier Competition on Saturday were hugely successful, thanks in large part to the warm weather, which suddenly took a turn for the worse on Sunday. It was lovely to see so many people about enjoying this rather quaint festival that celebrates the historic traditions of the city and also the rich tapestry of life that we enjoy here in East Cambridgeshire. The Ely Lions, who can always be depended on to muck-in at these kind of events, were out in force as were the Mayor, Richard Hobbs and council chairman Peter Cresswell. A good variety of stalls and some stunning arena acts all combined to produce a great family day out. Well done to everyone concerned, especially our own Town Crier, Avril Hayter-Smith, who did a splendid job of organising the Town Crier competition and making the event so entertaining.

My son Aaron and his wife Louise stayed with me on Friday night and we got talking about the lottery. Every week I buy one ticket for the Euro Millions and a ticket for the Saturday draw. Louise and Aaron buy just one ticket each week for the Saturday draw. So that's all fine, except that I use the same numbers each week and Louise and Aaron let the computer pick random numbers, and therein lies my dilemma. Currently I don't do the Wednesday draw and I have never checked the Wednesday draw results, so there is, of course, a chance, however small, that my numbers have already come up at some point and so I will never win. Also, I have missed a few Saturday draws because I forgot to buy tickets and on those occasions I didn't have the nerve to check the numbers...just in case! So it seems that I have several options; I could buy tickets for the Wednesday, Friday, Saturday draws and make sure I never miss a week, or, I could free myself and go for the random number option and take my chances that the old numbers never come up. I really want to relieve myself of the pressure of my set numbers, but I can't so I am stuck with them. Also, as I chose family birthday numbers I would know instantly that I would have won had I bought a ticket if I didn't!

And it gets even more complicated. There is only a one in 13,983816 chance of me winning the lottery anyway and if I keep to the same numbers and buy one ticket per week it could, allowing for all the permutations of numbers, take up to 269,000 years for my numbers to come up!

I checked the National Lottery website and the largest unclaimed prize was for �2,054,754 on a ticket bought in Hull in 2005. The deadline for that prize has now expired. It just doesn't bear thinking about does it? Ignorance is definitely bliss for this 'lucky' punter.