Valentine's Day

It almost looks autumnal outside. Damp pervades the air - a feeling of everything dripping. It's misty rather than raining. I would say it's the season of mists & mellow fruitfulness only there isn't much sign of fruitfulness. The only thing that could be regarded as potentially fruitful is that some of the birds seem to be turning their minds to love & attracting mates.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. As usual we virtually forgot about it. It wasn't until dinner that the Fox suddenly remembered he'd got some chocolate for me, only he'd forgotten to get it out of hiding for me to find in the morning.

After dinner I gave Linda a ring about the last-Monday-of-the-month meal. Then the full impact of Valentine's Day hit. Linda, still just in her early 50s, was widowed last April. This was her first Valentine's Day without Dave. Last year they'd been happily on holiday in Mexico. The hotel had asked them when their wedding anniversary was. As they didn't want a fuss, they said February 14 (it's actually a couple of days later), thinking there would be so many anniversaries that day the hotel couldn't make a fuss of them all. They were mistaken.

Fortunately I said the right thing for once. I commented we never made a fuss of Valentine's Day. It's a poor sort of love if you only celebrate it on one day of the year. Linda was so relieved. That is just what she'd wanted to hear. Dave, her husband, always told her it was a load of commercial nonsense & she'd needed to hear someone tell her so. I hope I'd helped.

Having been reminded of the day, we thought we'd open a bottle of pink fizzy stuff in the evening. Our choice of music was a disc entitled "My Funny Valentine", a compilation of classic love songs. But we weren't really in the mood - a mixture of exhaustion from doing the Sunday housework chores & a sombreness of mood after my chat to Linda. Though one thing we did agree on. We were both very pleased each other was there, to embrace, to kiss, to love. And that's worth celebrating 365/6 days of the year!