Quite a Week!

This week's a biggie- Lent on Wednesday, then Valentine's Day on Thursday, like oil and water, and REALLY bad timing when you think about it. I mean, say for example, that you're considering giving up chocolate for Lent. Well, strictly speaking, you'll have to wait till the 'wearing of the green' to pop those truffles! Or what if you're (re)taking the pledge for the duration? Better put that champagne on ice and treat yourself to a nice long Shloer instead-what a bummer!  And, as it happens, an entirely hypothetical situation for me as neither champers nor truffles have made an appearance around these parts since sometime in the last millennium! I'm just feeling your pain, you see...cos I'm all heart! (Geddit!?)

 Thankfully, I've given it all some serious thought, and I'm afraid that the only way around this tricky situation is to
a) come to the obvious realization that truffles and champagne do not,  in fact, fall into the categories of chocolate, and alcohol respectively- rather they are both gourmet foods, and therefore exempt.  Or alternatively, and perhaps more attractively, you could
b) begin Lent on Friday instead...or better still, why not wait till Monday? Let's face it, starting Lent on a weekend is arguably self abuse, AND as an added bonus, you'll also have a week less to do! A win win either way, I'd say, and no problem at all, peeps, just glad I could help.

I'll be honest though, I'm not a MASSIVE fan of Valentine's Day. It just all seems a bit contrived, and I can think of nothing more boringly predictable, than getting engaged/married on Valentine's Day. Yawn. Don't misunderstand, I LOVE getting flowers from Loverboy (on that blue moon), but I also love to buy them  myself, for us all to enjoy. If truth be told, I'd actually be annoyed if he bought flowers on February 14th, (especially red roses- double yawn), because they're SO bloody overpriced! Spend the same amount two days later, Lover, and get me twice as much! (He's totally grasped the concept of the first part of that statement, ....I'm still working on the second).


 Contrarily, I WOULD be hurt if I didn't get a card- I'm not quite sure why! Maybe it's a throwback from NEVER getting any in school, as in NEVER EVER EVER, and enduring the annual humiliation of watching others slowly remove them from their school bag one by one, then smugly arrange them on their desk like badges of honour! (Bitter? Moi?)

Now don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for the big, grand, romantic gestures..... and the wee, small, much less grand ones too.... but not especially on Valentine's Day. A little originality please!  How about a surprise bouquet on a wet Tuesday in April? Or breakfast in bed on a blustery Sunday in October? Or a champagne beach picnic at the Caravilla in July? (Ya listening, sweetie?) Something that shows your love just because...and not 'just because' either.

When I was at the MAD Awards in London in September, (Whoops, did I just drop something? Because DO feel free to nominate me again this year...top of the page...thanks babes), I met the wonderful Lucy who writes the fab blog Lulastic and the Hippyshake. On her blog yesterday she wrote a post about thoughtful, original, romantic FREE Valentine's gifts and I LOVED them...(especially the last two....in case a certain person's reading.....just sayin'.)
 Happy Monday! Emmax

  I've joined up with Sarah Miles at Hello Wall today for the Monday Club-go on over and take a peek at the rest! 

Be my Valentine.......

And that's an awful lot!

Twenty two years ago today, I sent a Valentines card to a boy I'd enthusiastically kissed on New Year's Eve. Three days later we went out on a proper date for the first time. Still at school, barely eighteen, looking back we were only babies. Fast forward to right now, and we're an old married couple with a house, a mortgage and five kids to show for it. So I'm sure that you won't be surprised to know, that Valentine's Day means something very different now than it did all those years ago. Then, it was all about the grand(ish) gesture. Whether it was flowers, a cuddly Garfield or heart shaped balloons, it was important to me and, I suppose, to our identity as a couple, that Valentine's Day didn't pass unchecked. But that was then, and this is now, and life's very different and we're no longer eighteen. Please don't misunderstand - I'm not saying for one moment that I don't love getting flowers (all types except chrysanths and NEVER from a garage), and chocolates (you can't go wrong with Lindor), but I don't NEED them on Valentine's Day.... Gestures of love change and evolve along with a relationship and although the BIG GESTURE is very exciting, it's just the icing and not the cake. What's far more meaningful for me, are the countless little gestures on the ordinary days in the ordinary weeks that tell me I'm loved. Like getting into bed and finding my blanket already turned on, or my nightly cup of tea brought in on a tray. It's getting up with the kids at the weekend to give me a lie in, and then making breakfast in bed.  It's holding hands while watching the News or having a bath together late at night. It's being told that I'm beautiful with greasy hair and no makeup, and letting me warm my cold hands on his back. It's defrosting my car on a freezing morning, or quietly filling it with petrol just so I don't have to.

My card this year-the bar has been raised!

This everyday romance of ours may not be dramatic or spectacular or the stuff of movies, but it's the glue that keeps a relationship alive amidst homeworks and laundry, bills and school runs. It's the real deal. So a Happy Valentine's Day 2012 to my one and only Loverboy and here's to many more....