Why, oh why, oh why?

I remember having to go through all our cupboards back in Sheffield, deciding what we would bring to Spain and what we would get rid of. Hindsight has shown, as with many people, that we should have brought a lot of stuff we didn't and some of the stuff we did bring really wasn't that important.

But I did have a cabinet in the dining room full of various glasses - and I remember thinking at the time that over the years I had never managed to have a full set of matching glasses for more than about a month - but I had lots of very nice glasses in sets of 5!

It started with my first ever set of glasses that weren't from coupons we got everytime we filled the car up with petrol. This was a set of 4 very pretty wine glasses, all hand etched and bought as a wedding present (the first time around) by my work colleagues. They were kept in the cabinet for special occassions and on their second outing they were reduced to 3 after I accidentally knocked one against the tap as I rinsed the soap from it to avoid having marks when it dried! I remember debating long and hard whether to bring the remaining 3 with me to Spain, after all they had been in my cupboard over 25 years and had survived much longer than my first marriage - but in the end, I didn't bring them.

I have always enjoyed a glass of wine from time to time, but over the last few years have found that I enjoyed it better from a small wine glass, when all the time wine glasses seemed to be getting bigger. So shortly before leaving for Spain I bought 6 small wine glasses, not expensive as I have learnt over the years that the more expensive the glasses, the quicker they are reuced to 5.

These survived the packing and the move to Spain. These survived the move from one villa to the other and then up to the new house. These didn't survive being used for dessert.

We had friends over last Thursday and then more on Saturday and Neil, in his culinary flair mood, decided that he wanted to do a dessert of different layers of jelly (homemade, of course) and that they would look better in glasses than dishes so the artistry could be appreciated. We had the 6 matching wine glasses and on Thursday there would be 4 of us - and of course we needed to try it before we served it to guests, so 2 extra for us.

He took so much care over his layers of Strawberry, Mango and then Kiwi fruit jellies, topped with custard over sliced banana and finished with a flourish of fresh cream & a strawberry. As he leant over for the 6th glass to put the final flourish he caught it on the work top and the stem broke clean away from the base.

And so, the tradition continues - once again we have a matching set of 5 wine glasses.

Last Saturday there were 6 of us (fortunately, one of the guys preferred beer with his dinner, so the set of 5 glasses worked just fine). Neil had this time used his 6 cocktail glasses to layer the jelly into and it looked very striking. These were from IKEA about a year ago, and I think were about €1 each - I have found that the length of time I can keep a set of 6 glasses together is directly proportional to the cost. The cocktail glasses survived until the meal, they survived until the washing up BUT they didn't survive long enough to go back in the cupboard. One decided to make a 'break' for freedom and jumped off the draining board and shattered on the floor tiles.

I can now, hand on heart, formerly declare and confirm that there is no longer a single set of 6 matching glasses of an kind in my cabinet.

How do I do it?