Pondering on things to do if by a chance of fate I actually won the lottery or premium bonds… it’s a weird form of goal setting actually, as since drafting the first version of this list back in July 2022 some of the items have more substance to the aspiration.

My mother has been demanding I go back to entering, especially for the big draws, as her escape plan relies on it, and it has reawakened the chance to wonder ‘what if’ from time to time which has been interesting.

So. What if I’d win?? Big I mean, not the £3.70 from 2 weeks ago…What would I plan? What would anyone plan? It’s a lot of money to be bewildered by! One thing for certain is the plan was to stay anonymous, but different people have different priorities.

1. Family money but not at silly levels
2. Fancy camper van to roam in without having to keep unpacking. Have even looked at the daft positions of showers and bed heads in some of those out of curiosity! A friend has done this, since 2022…
3. Open a bookshop locally specialising in indie authors of quality and non fiction, with a café for lonely people to meet without realising that’s what the café was for! Natural history and landscape would feature prominently. To be run by a competent and passionate manager or two, not me, but stocking my books of course 🤣. Again a friend has done this, with a craft bias, in April 2024
4. Hefty donation to needy emergencies
5. Setting up a foundation for educating young people from backgrounds other foundations don’t support (not intentionally rich kid averse, but probably effectively so). Have since discovered BGen, the Botanic Gardens Education Network, so would channel through that
6. Setting up a foundation for providing support and training to businesses run by middle-aged people who have not had a pension to cash in to fund it. This is a huge gap aching to be filled, particularly in East Sussex who only fund community projects (growl)
7. To find a house and garden to love and live in, hopefully with a turret or two and a library. Or build an environmentally inert one. On the site of a fallen down one
8. Something sensible and far-reaching to do with ecology and nature. Also now identified. I would invest in the sewage to airline fuel business as that solves some major problems identified by my grandfather in his Institution of Civil Engineers Presidential address. In his book he refers to encountering ‘Malthusian Objects’, entire paragraphs of insight condensed into two words
9. Not sure how much would be left after all that! But Carry on Publishing would definitely be involved, as well as keeping diverse random things happening

Anything else come to mind?