Manoli, an 85-year-old girl, used to showing on TV on the day of the Christmas Lottery draw, disguised in several outfits, is already queuing on the doorways of the Teatro Real in Madrid to be one of many first to enter on Thursday collectively to a diversified group of ‘regulars’, who’re excited concerning the Extraordinary Draw on December twenty second.
Still, Manoli, doesn’t put on the costume that he’ll put on this 12 months and that, as he progresses, will likely be a snow globe and that, as on earlier events, wherein he has dressed up because the Fat Man’s drum or as a Christmas tree, they’re making their daughters.
In earlier years he has slept on the doorways of the Theater and warmed up with an excellent scorching chocolate from a close-by churrería, however this time he’ll solely wait within the Plaza de Oriente on the evening of the twenty first, since his well being now not permits him to be as a lot climate outside.
Since 2012, when the draw started to be held on the Teatro Real, Manoli has been the primary to reach, though when this December 15, final Thursday, he approached the Madrid opera home, Jesús was already there, occupying the primary dressed as Pope.
Jesús is one other common within the draw queue for fifteen years, when it was nonetheless held on Guzmán el Bueno road, on the State Lottery and Betting headquarters, and he actually likes the thought of dressing up: “I got here from Fernando VII , a clown and a witch, however Papa’s is the primary one I repeat as a result of it is the one I preferred essentially the most,” he says.
Also with an ecclesiastical theme is Juan, who for 9 years has been ready disguised as a bishop for the lottery, as a result of, in line with what he says, he has the phantasm of distributing many prizes, particularly in his city, Toral de los Guzmanes, and in León, the place he lives .
He has purchased 72 tenths, “72 goals” -he says excited-, and he’s reserving himself for this 12 months’s Gordo as a result of, as he says, since there is no such thing as a covid, he’ll get pleasure from it to the fullest when it’s his flip.
Juan sleeps on the road at evening, wrapped up in thermal clothes and blankets together with different colleagues like Mapi, who to face up to the chilly goes with the group to the churrería and so they drink chocolate, play ball, inform jokes, sing… .
Mapi joined the group seven years in the past, however that is the primary time he has disguised himself: “as a gasoline station, as a result of if not, I do not get to Madrid from Castellón, from the place I journey to witness the draw,” he says.
Manoli affirms that “excellent” individuals are identified ready on the Teatro Real, and Jesús provides that they trade tenths amongst themselves “which is essentially the most stunning factor there’s”.
They have skilled very particular moments, like when Manoli received the fifth prize a couple of years in the past and he discovered about it there, in the intervening time.
“I mentioned oh, that it has touched me, 6,000 euros!, and all of the televisions got here after me,” he recollects that second with emotion, which he hopes to stay once more this 22.