You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Twenty-One

DECEMBER 10th

Well hello there lovely people of the internet, it's your favourite Christmas helper back again and I am here to tell you that I took your wonderful advice last night and made up a batch of my very own Mulled Wine, and wow, was it good! Not quite good enough to disguise the truly horrendous date I'd had to suffer through afterwards though but that is a story for another day, I am afraid. And as I sipped my drink and nursed my sore ego, I thought to myself, why Mulled Wine, and why at Christmas?

For me, it's simple. Who here has ever ordered themselves a glass of our beloved drink after a long walk in the cold weather and leant eagerly over the cup to inhale its sweet, spicy aroma? Because I do this every year and there is nothing that can beat it. Even the Ancient Romans would drink warmed mulled wine to get them through the harsh winter months, so if it was good enough for them all of those years ago, it is good enough for me now.

But that doesn't answer the question of, why Christmas?

Well, skip a couple of centuries and we've landed ourselves in Victorian England where the Mulled Wine we know it as today really upped its popularity, and the reason for this is thanks to a certain hero of mine . . . Mr Charles Dickens, and his wonderful novel A Christmas Carol, in which he writes about a drink called a Smoking Bishop. A drink associated with good health, warmth and happiness. The true staple for Christmas spirit itself.

Henceforth, Mulled Wine solidifies its place as the ULTIMATE Christmas drink.

So, there you go, lovely readers. I bet when you logged on to see what treats I had in store for you today you weren't expecting a little history lesson from yours truly but there you have it. A little history can't harm us sometimes, can it? And now, let's all spread some festive cheer by dropping me a comment in the box below to tell me why YOU love to drink Mulled Wine at Christmas time!

Until tomorrow.

All the best, Dottie-O x

I lean back against my pillow and re-read my latest post for the website, feeling happy as I press send, knowing that at least my first job of the day was finally done (even if it was creeping into the afternoon already) and I'm reaching for my advent calendar when a loud thud outside my bedroom door makes me freeze.

I strain my ears, trying to ascertain what could have caused it. After several seconds of silence follows however, I shake my head and make another grab for my chocolate, guessing the source of the bang must have come from the kids playing in the flat above ours.

I blame Lincoln and those stupid comments he made yesterday about defenceless women being alone in flats with broken windows because he's given me the spooks. I've never had a problem so far so I shouldn't start worrying now because of him!

Peeling back the door and removing my treat, I find a robin staring back at me and it's halfway to my mouth when I hear it again.

THUD!

And this time it was unmistakable.

I throw my laptop to the side and jump up, running to flick the lock on my bedroom door and as I plant my ear against it, I hear feet shuffling around on the stiff carpet outside, the occasional thump of objects being lifted and thrown back down interluding as they went.

Oh my God, someone is in my apartment! What do I do?

I want to call Ben but I know he's still in Essex and I don't want to alarm him, so I do the only rational thing I can think of during a crisis and race to the window, lifting it up and peering out to see if I would somehow manage to survive the jump. But we were three floors up and the only thing waiting below to catch me was a long empty pavement and a bunch of metal rubbish bins, so I didn't really fancy my chances.