A Bottle of Wine and Patsy Kline

I cancelled my subscription to the Wine Club today.

I should have done it years ago, even when I was drinking wine.

The wine was interesting, in that I'd never heard of any one of the producers. Much of it was very good. I recall one time when we'd opened a bottle, my wife went into raptures about the stuff. It was French, which she usually hates: says it smells of cave floor. But even when I drank wine, the Wine Club was an unnecessary luxury.

The thing was five or six years ago, along with with my Nectar Card blurb, came an introductory offer from the Nectar Wine Club. A case of wine for £30 or some such silly price. So I signed up, thinking I'd got a bargain, not realising that I committed myself to a least four deliveries a year. If it had been a Book Club offer, I'd have thrown the stuff straight in the bin, but as it was wine...

I realised soon afterwards my mistake. The case of wine arrived with helpful tasting notes and a preview of my next case. But I didn't cancel. You know I felt too ashamed: to do so would have been to admit that I'd made a mistake. Something I like to think the super shopper in me wouldn't do.

Even though the wine would come regularly once a quarter I was always surprised; especially as it wasn't  scheduled into my financial accounts. It was as if I was too ashamed to acknowledge the existance of this shopping  faux pas, and wiped it from my memory.

I should have cancelled five years ago. The local Majestic Wine shop is a few minutes drive away and I can and did order on line. So why the need of Nectar Wines?

Anyway, this morning I cancelled. While the phone was ringing I was rehearsing my reasons for wanting to cancel. It had to be fool proof, how stupid was that.

The telephone lady expressed no surprise at the news that long serving customer - me - was cancelling his order. And when she asked if I would mind telling her why I wanted to cancel, I found I could honestly say "Because I'd stopped drinking wine." Couldn't get a more legitimate reason than that.

Then I immediately wondered whether she wondered why I'd stopped drinking. Was I an alcoholic, who'd been told by his doctor that another drink would kill him? Had I fallen on hard times and £90 a quarter was just too much of  a financial burden? Was I lying?

I've also stopped ordering non alcoholic beer on line. I don't drink very much of it now. A good strong cup of tea is as much excitement I can take these days.

It's good the wine arrived. My wife had drained the last bottle in the house a couple of days ago.