At midnight on December 1st, the true dawn of the Christmas season, Janice Langley, 56, of Nottingham felt an unusual yet familiar urge. That urge was to mull.
She told us that she was in her kitchen, enjoying a hot cocoa with her husband, Ken, before retiring to bed. All of a sudden, the cocoa seemed dull and uninteresting and offensively unfestive. She immediate dashed to her cupboards and rifled through them with such alarming urgency, it caused her startled husband to cry out.
"What's happening, Love, what are you looking for", said a clearly unsettled Ken, "everything's falling on the floor".
He was right, the floor now sported Smores kits, hot chocolate envelopes, 3 mint tea bags and numerous assorted bean cans.
"I MUST MULL, " whispered Janice, "I MUST MULL!"
Finally, she seemed triumphant and emerged from a below surface cupboard with a small bottle of mulling syrup, bought last year but never opened. She unscrewed the bottle top and poured a good glug of the syrup into her Cocoa. She inhaled deeply and drank heartily.
"Yes. YES!" she shouted before pouring some syrup into Ken's glass of bitter, the cats milk and the budgies water dish. Ken had to stop her running outside after she had spied an unmulled bird bath in the garden.
"It was like she was possessed", said a breathless Ken, "every year it happens and every year I forget. I mean we all love Christmas but she mulled the communion wine and the holy water last year on Christmas Day. We've not been asked back to St Cuthbert's since".
image from pixabay