win with us!
It was sunshine smiles for bingo fan Tania Mattock, 36, from Northampton, when her numbers came up!
i’ve always loved the excitement of playing bingo. The buzz and the social aspect is what I like the most, joking and having a laugh with people in the chatrooms while we wait for our numbers to come up. I would catch up on all sorts of topics with the other members and have a lot of fun.
I’ve been playing Woman Bingo for more than 10 years, and really love it. I play either on my mobile or on the laptop at home.
Working full-time as an accounts controller, it’s usually in the evenings when I’m chatting away to my mum, or ‘Mumsy’ as most of my friends call her!
We’re pretty close, as mums and daughters go, and although I have my housemate, my mum is always the one I turn to if I need help or advice.
One evening, in October 2017, we were chatting on the phone, planning our next holiday – a week in Majorca.
‘After the year I’ve had, it’s just what the doctor ordered,’ I said to Mum.
Booked for the spring 2018, there was a while to wait yet though…
successful op
‘It will go in a flash,’ said Mum. It had been a bit of a rotten year really, but finally things were on the up.
Now 36, I’d been struggling with a painful back since my late teens, after I fell down a steep flight of stairs at work.
Doctors had just given me painkillers and told me to rest. But some days, it was absolute agony.
‘I can’t go on like this,’ I told my doctor one day. I’d even had to reduce my hours at work, I was in so much pain.
Finally, in February 2016, he referred me for an MRI scan.
‘You have a prolapsed disc and it’s pushing right on to your nerve,’ the consultant told me. No wonder I’d been in so much pain! ‘I can’t believe you’ve been living with this all this time,’ Mum said sadly.
In June 2017, after so long in pain, I decided to go privately to get the op done. I just wanted to get on with my life.
A few weeks later, at a hospital in Northampton, surgeons moved one of the discs in my back.
The operation was successful, but it took months to recover properly.
Chatting to my mum back then in October, I couldn’t believe how bright the future was looking, and I couldn’t wait to get on that beach!
‘No excuse not to hit the gym now,’ I was saying to Mum, keeping an eye on my laptop as my bingo game went on.
I was playing in Bingo Lounge with 15 tickets. I’d got a ‘buy two, get one free’ offer.
I usually love playing the slot game Diamond Bonanza, but also bingo in Sapphire and the Bingo Lounge. Suddenly, the balance at the top of the screen changed… It went from double figures to four!
‘my mum screamed with joy’
hitting the jackpot
I slowly walked towards the laptop, peering closely at the screen – £1,799 more was showing in my balance!
‘Mum!’ I cried. ‘I’ve hit the £1,731 progressive jackpot!’ I’d also won the £68 Full House. Incredible.
‘You’re joking!’ screamed Mum with joy at the other end of the line.
Just when I was thinking things were going so well, things got even better!
I had a think about what I was going to spend the money on, but first I put some aside for extra treats on my holiday with Mum.
My amazing bingo win has been such a wonderful surprise.
Now we will be jetting off very soon for our holiday in the Majorcan sunshine!