The mere fact that I am writing this column means things did not go entirely my way. If they had, it would have been a farewell postcard from Barbados instead.

You see, I didn't win the Euro Millions jackpot. Imagine £100 million. I'd have rolled over for a tenth of that, but no such luck.

Like all my readers - both of them - I invested in a ticket and let the fantasies take over.

Dashed are my dreams of decadence. Gone are the flights of fancy which took me to exotic places, lazy days with money no object.

I've complained bitterly to God for years that I've never had a single touch on the lottery, despite the fact that I'm basically a good person who would never deliberately harm another soul - and I don't gamble. Why, God, why can't I win the big one? Then one day he shut me up with the simple answer: "Bill, meet me half way - buy a ticket." At least he didn't mention the drinking.

When I told my wife about the message from above, she said it can't have been God because it was a male voice!

But through the depressing, grey mist of disappointment, I'm beginning to see the positive side of being a lottery loser.

For one thing I'd spoil the kids rotten: My son would blow his share on a fast car and wrap it round an innocent tree; my daughters would become magnets for fortune-hunting, ne'er-do-well suitors.

I'd also have the problem of how to hide my win from my wife. No point getting her all excited with the thought that she would no longer be financially tied to me. She needs to know that she's keeping me in the luxury I deserve.

So, I'd have to dress every morning in my normal workwear, leave the house at the usual time in my battered jalopy and make my way to my secret penthouse. Once in the silk suit and gleaming Porsche, I'd spend an exhausting day of outrageous excesses like any other multi-millionaire, then crawl back into my rags and return home complaining of a hard day at the office. How long could I keep that up?

Unaccustomed wealth can ruin a relationship, even one as strong as ours.

In that warm, rosy interim period between buying a ticket and tearing it up once the draw is revealed, in your mind you are rich and you can almost feel the dream.

All the time you don't check your ticket you are not a loser. The longer you leave it, the longer you can feel a wealthy man.

You can plan - knowing you have as good a chance as anyone of winning - what to do with your riches.

We could buy one of those huge houses you see in the posh estate agent's adverts, with rolling acres, woodland and a river running through it (the land not the house, you fool). "Who'd clean it?" asks the missus. Simple. We'd get a 20-year-old Russian au pair. Maybe two.

We could have a boy's room, complete with darts board, snooker table, bar, video games and 90-inch plasma TV screen; and we could have a girl's room with double cooker, wall-to-wall recipe books and sewing machine.

We'd have a country pub in the grounds.

But I like our little house as it is, purrs Mrs H. Okay, you stay here and I'll get the big house.

Enough of this navel gazing. Let's get back to reality. Stop leaving lights on all round the house, we have to economise. Don't flush the toilet so often, we're on a meter. How much can I afford off the credit cards this month? Are we having a wet weekend in Mablethorpe again? Can you manage to get through a week without buying another pair of shoes, love?

Updated: 10:30 Tuesday, January 31, 2006