From people who whine lots, to…
When I was a lad, my parents used to have quite a wine stash. It wasn’t particularly expensive, rare or impressive in that sense, but it sure was expansive and diverse.

When I went to University, I didn’t tend to have much of a wine stash. If I needed a bottle, I’d go round the corner to the shop, and besides, wine used up valuable stomach space that I needed for beer, and valuable cupboard space that I needed for… actually, come to think of it, I travelled pretty light at Uni, so I guess this sentence would have to end with the word clothes.
Aaaaanyway. Then after University I did the customary thing that has been getting more and more commonplace, which is to realise that they don’t have a clue what they want to do for a living, and that their degree isn’t quite the silver bullet that their odorous headteacher told them that it would be. So I moved back in with my parents.
(aside: a short post about wine to pass the time whilst Karen cooks my dinner has turned into an autobiography. I hope I don’t let slip about the time that I dropped a man in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs. Whoops.)
Whilst I was living with my parents, I got into whisky. Which will come as no surprise, as my escape into the big wide world had been abruptly cut short.
Then things started to look up, and my life got back on track, in a fashion that was bumpy enough to be believable, but smooth enough to be bearable. I realised that now was the time to start keeping a couple of bottles of wine in the house, for when I had a gal over (Of course, when I was alone, it was beer all the way).
So I’d tend to have three or four bottles on the rack, and rarely more.
Today, Karen and I went to Majestic Wine Warehouse for the first time in my life. And they are quite clear – your minimum purchase will be 12 bottles. So I didn’t really have a choice.
This is an overwhelming quantity of wine for me. And an incredibly boring blog post for you. I’d better retire from blogging, post haste. I leave you with a photo of the 12 new recruits, pictured with a couple of veterans in the background.

Which of you lot feels like having a go at naming all fourteen…