52 New Things - Week Twenty Two

It's been a pretty grim, cold, rainy week so to add a bit of excitement to the weekend I decided I should head to Portsmouth to see my friend George and play a game or two of Bingo!

First stop though was cake. Originally George and I had discussed a cake crawl of the best tea rooms Portsmouth & Southsea had to offer. The first location we went to was crazy busy. We decided that the queue would be gone by the time we finished a game of Pitch and Put but we were wrong, it was just as long. So we headed to our second destination only to be disappointed by the range of cakes on offer. Finally we found ourselves in a tea room on Southsea Green and settled on a monster slice of Red Velvet cake (me) and Reeces Pieces cake (George). In hindsight, a cake crawl isn't the best idea we've ever had, it was quite lucky we didn't have cake in the first two locations as after one slice of cake and we were both stuffed, any more and we would have had to been rolled to bingo.

So full of tea and cake we headed to George's to prepare ourselves for the evening ahead by drinking more tea. Our destination for the evening was to be Crown Bingo in Cosham. 

Now, as 'Playing Bingo' was on my list on '52 New Things' it goes without saying I have never played bingo before so I didn't know what to expect. I was imagining teams of hen do's mixed with little old ladies in a damp derelict hall. I was pretty wrong. The hall we went to was huge! It used to be a theatre and tables were set up where the dress circle would have been as well as in the stalls area. It was clean, bright and really busy, but not with hen do's.

We arrived at 7 pm and the first game started at 7.30 pm so after signing in, purchasing our books and dobbers (the pens for ticking off our numbers) we headed to the bar/canteen to get some dinner to set us up for a busy night. The food totally lived up to my expectations. I wanted cheap yellow food and that is exactly what we got. Even though they had a fully stocked bar I stuck to a soft drink as I didn't want booze to hinder my chance of winning big.

And then before I knew it the games had started. At first, even though George said she told me the layout, I couldn't figure out the play slips. The numbers were coming thick and fast and I couldn't keep up. After one or two games though I suddenly realised there was some logic to the way the slips were laid out, and from then I started to enjoy myself. It was different to what I was expecting though. I suddenly realised why there were no hen do's - this game needs concentration and quiet. When the numbers were being called no one dared to speak, unless of course you had a line or full house. As soon as someone called out a win the whole hall would start to murmur. 

After a few rounds there would be a 10-15 minute break, a chance to nip to the bar, or toilet, or just have a gossip. But then it would all start again. There were some great prizes on offer. Most games had a jackpot of £400, and there were a few linked games where you could win up to £2500! These were some pretty high stakes, and that could explain why the hall was so busy. As we were coming to the end of the night I finally won something. I had two lines which gave me a prize of £30. That was probably more than I spent on the evening so, all in all, pretty darn good. I did enjoy the evening and would totally go again. Perhaps not every week, but I might check in once every 6 months to see if I can better my £30 win.