I think we may have more things to drink drinks out of than we have drinks we will want to drink.  Our house has a mug cupboard.  And a second mug cupboard.  And a back-up mug cupboard.  Then, we keep some on a shelf, some in a special 'Christmas mug' box and some are still lurking in boxes we haven't unpacked since we moved house.  One mug lives in the attic.  It is the attic-mug.  If you ever saw this mug, you would know why.  (Sometimes, I think I hear it dragging itself around up there.  On those nights, I huddle under the bed-covers and hope it doesn't work out how to get down into the main house...)

Those jokes about how women have loads of pairs of shoes?  That's me with mugs.  Shoes are a bit of a mystery to me, as I already mentioned when talking about going shopping for a wedding outfit.  Mugs, I know about.  We once went on a day-trip to a town for the express purpose that it had a Dunoon outlet shop.  Good mugs, Dunoon.  Pricey, but worth it.  I especially like some of their ones with sheepdogs and sheep on them.

In the same way that people have different shoes to go with different outfits, I match mugs with moods.  And with times of day, how thirsty I am, how tired I am, which drink it is - Lemsip just can't go in some mugs - it will taint them -  who else is having a drink, the time of year, whether it is a 'being cosy' day or a 'being stylish' day (not a lot of those, but sometimes I like to pretend)...

Over the Christmas period, I greet the return of some of my favourite mugs.  They have reindeer on them.  Reindeer rank lower than dragons on the List of Awesome, but they are still a pretty high ranking creature.  I am only allowed my Christmas mugs during December.  I therefore live for December.  We have a ceremonial opening-of-the-mug-box.  It is epic and all things good.  (It takes the form of opening the box and - this is the special bit - drinking tea out of the highest ranking reindeer mug.  Told you it is epic.  Bet you're jealous of my exciting life right about now.)

I don't forget my friends, either.  Some people have special mugs, which live at my house and which are only used by that person when they visit.  Mum is under the impression that the mugs she is allowed to use are the ones I don't mind being broken, but this is a self-imposed punishment, dating from ONE time she broke a mug, which I am over.  Really, she can use any mug.  Well, most of the mugs.  All right, not the ones with reindeer on them, but that is a rule everyone has to follow, so...

Some times back, I finally had to accept, after repeated entreaties from loved ones (I would love to say they staged a 'mugtervention', but they really just kept asking if I really needed more mugs), that I should stop buying every mug I liked, so I channeled my need for mugs into present-buying.  We may now have reached the point where my friends and family also have too many mugs.  No matter.

We have a slightly similar condition with wine glasses, shot glasses and, as of this week, a set of glasses for drinking port which look like the unholy off-spring of a shot-glass and a tobacco pipe.  You actually drink the port through a little stalk type thing.

There really is no point to this post.  I just wanted to talk about mugs.  And other drinking vessels.  So it goes.