LET SPECIAL ONES KNOW YOU CARE
TODAY I wish all our readers a happy and loving Valentine’s Day.
I know many people scorn the event as a purely commercial gimmick to con people into buying expensive gifts, greeting cards and monstrously overpriced red roses, but it doesn’t have to be like that for everybody.
In fact, it needn’t cost anything at all to tell somebody you love them.
Many of us rush through life in this busy world, seldom taking the time to stop and appreciate the people around us. Life is a whirlwind of school lunches, commuter transport, meetings, appointments, bill payments, laundry and grocery shopping.
Now we have the added complication of Eskom’s power cuts making life even more stressful.
It’s all too easy to accept the person who is so important in your life as just another feature of today’s frantic rush.
Valentine’s Day is there to remind us not to take the people we love for granted. No matter how busy, or stressed, or important you are, take a moment today to tell the special person in your life that you appreciate them and love having them in your life. Many people – men in particular – find it hard to say those three corny little words, particularly if they haven’t said them for a while.
Now is your chance. The expensive cards and the overpriced red roses are all very well, but none of them mean half as much as a “Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you very much.”
And before I am accused of being soppy, remember we have a special Valentine’s evening treat this year. Most of us have the perfect excuse for a romantic candlelight dinner tonight, by courtesy of those merry clowns trying to work out how to make the Eskom generators produce electricity. “Hey my bru, check out the lekker blue sparks when I touch these wires together. Cool hey! Just like Guy Foks.”
So polish the candlesticks, light those candles and bring out the pink bubbly wine. All kinds of interesting things can happen in candlelight, even if you can’t afford overpriced roses.
The story of Saint Valentine is rather muddled. Legend has it that he was a priest in third century Rome and at one stage the Roman emperor Claudius II decided single men made better soldiers than married men, so he forbade young men of fighting age from getting married.
Valentine, however, believed love and marriage were more important than war, so he secretly continued marrying young Christian couples. He was arrested and executed, rather messily, for defying Claudius. It may even be a true story. Last Laugh
Women at a tea party were telling each other about their recent holidays. After listening to one glowing account, one said: “I knew you and Fred were planning to take a road trip to Durban, but I didn’t know you were planning to visit Port Alfred as well. It seems a long way off the usual route.”
“Yes, well, you know how men are. Fred refuses to ask for directions.”