The Perfect Valentine Hearts & Flowers

So much changes over the years, including expressions of love… but ultimately all of them come from the heart

The one in the padded box

Davey Wilson, he was called, the boy who sent me my first Valentine card. We met when we were in the same science class at school. We spent weeks making eyes at each other across the chemistry room, shyly smiling and then looking away.

This went on for a full term, the smiling and the looking and pretending not to notice each other. And if we saw each other in the school corridors in between classes, when we were with our friends, we’d lock eyes but just for a second, before anyone saw.

Davey never picked up the courage to speak to me, not then, although I kept hoping he would. But he did send his friend, tall and skinny Paul, over to me in the dinner hall one day. I was sitting with Julie and Bev and we were working our way through cheese pie and soggy chips.

“My mate wants to know if you fancy him,” Paul announced bluntly. No hello or howareyou? He just came straight out with it.

“Which mate?” I replied, as if I didn’t know. Well, Jackie magazine always told you not to act too keen. But my heart was beating twenty to the dozen and I could feel Julie and Bev’s eyes burning into me as they waited to hear my reply.

“Davey,” Paul replied. “He’s over there.” He pointed to the other side of the dining hall where I already knew Davey was sitting, having spotted him earlier. He was laughing and joking with his mates and they were throwing chips at each other.

“Davey Wilson?” Julie said. “Urgh. You don’t fancy him, Anne, do you?” “He’s a wimp,” Bev chipped in. I turned and looked up at Paul and shrugged. “He’s all right,” I said. Julie and Bev burst out laughing and Paul disappeared across the room back to his friends. I watched as Paul slid into the seat next to Davey and passed on my words.

I saw Davey’s face flush all red with embarrassment, well, it was either that or it might have been a reaction to the soggy chips and cheese pie.

And after that, Davey and I smiled at each other even more when we were in the same class. But we still never dared pick up the confidence to actually speak to each other.

And then one February day at school he walked up to me in class and gave me a flat, white cardboard box before he turned on his heel and walked away.

Julie and Bev sat open-mouthed. “Open it!” they cried as one. I lifted the lid and inside there it was, my first ever Valentine card. It was padded, with three hearts and a kitten, all surrounded by swirly golden letters. Inside the card, in blue Biro, were just two little words: FromDavey.

The one without a stamp

Davey and I lasted for all of five months until school broke up for the summer holidays. Well, it’s easy to forget someone when you don’t see them every day. He was all right, was Davey, but every time we went anywhere his friend Paul tagged along, too.

Inseparable they were, the pair of them, and they talked about things I didn’t understand. They talked boy stuff, about cars, and fishing, and they liked different television programmes to the ones I watched too.

I tried to get Bev or Julie to come out with me and Davey and Paul, when we went to the pictures or ice skating, so that Paul would have someone to talk to, but they never did.

Anyway, Davey and I slowly fizzled out and then it was just me, Julie and Bev – the three musketeers again.

My college course began in September and the three of us split up to go our different ways once the summer was over. Bev started work in an office and Julie went to sixth form.

I threw myself into my college work and loved every minute of it. I met a boy there – well, I met a few boys, truth be told – but only one of them became special to me.

It’s easy to FORGET about someone when you don’t SEE THEM every day

He made me GIGGLE – but more than that, he made me FEEL SPECIAL

Mick Simpson, he was called. I thought he was the one. But he turned out to be the one who broke my heart.

I cried for days when I found out he’d been seeing someone else, another girl at college. Mum helped me through the heartbreak and she cooked my favourite food when I came home from college every day, determined to put a smile back on my face.

And then in the February after I dumped Mick, a Valentine card appeared on our doormat at home. There was no stamp on it, and it arrived before the postman did his rounds.

It was there waiting for me when I came downstairs for breakfast, with just my name written on the pink envelope. There was something familiar about the handwriting, I thought, but I couldn’t place it at first.

I ripped open the envelope and the card inside was really cute. It was a wheelbarrow full of tiny red hearts but inside the card there was just the x of a kiss. No name, no message, nothing else… just a kiss.

I took the card into the kitchen and Mum was there as usual, getting breakfast ready.

“Any post today, love?” she said, a bit too breezily, which confused me at first because she knew what time the postman did his rounds. And that’s when I knew – just knew – that the mystery card was from my mum.

Mind you, she still denies it to this day, although the smile that plays around her lips when she says it wasn’t her always gives the game away.

The one with the poem

Youhaveanewfriendrequest, my phone pinged. I had made so many new friends at college since my course began that another friend request wasn’t unusual. But I didn’t recognise the name at all.

Paul Clark wasn’t someone I was friends with at college… but it was his picture I recognised. That same cheeky face, those sparkling eyes. It was Paul, the tall lad from school, Davey’s friend, who used to come on our dates with us.

I clicked to accept the friend request that he’d sent me and then forgot all about him until his messages started coming through. Friendly, funny messages he’d send me, just every now and then. Messages that would make me laugh with his memories of Davey and the teachers at school.

He had a job now, he told me, working for his dad’s firm and playing in a five-a-side footy team each Saturday. He invited me to go and see him play and so I did.

Well, it all started there, I suppose. The shy boy who’d been Davey’s right-hand man at school had blossomed into a right hunk. Playing football was clearly suiting him, building muscles in him, turning him from a boy to a man.

I liked what I saw and he was just as funny in real life as he was online. He made me giggle… but more than that, he made me feel special. We started dating and even Mum approved.

She liked him even more when I showed her the Valentine card he sent

me that very first time. It was small, no bigger than a playing card, but it was a beauty of a card with a red velvet heart on the front. And inside was a poem he’d written himself – or so he told me at the time. It was only years later that I realised he’d nicked the poem from Byron, word for flaming word.

The ones from my husband

Paul and I married when we were both in our early twenties. Mum looked gorgeous in her mother-of-the-bride suit in a shade of blue that reminded me of a wild bird’s tiny egg. The day was warm, I remember, warm and sunny with pink cherry blossom on the trees and the birds in full song.

It was a good day, a very good day, that went by much too quickly and I wanted to do it all again. I still do. He’s a good man, is Paul, he’s a good husband – and Mum still approves.

And oh, that first Valentine’s Day after we were married he came home with two dozen red roses for me. Two dozen! Hand-tied, long stemmed roses fastened in a huge bouquet. They must have cost a fortune, but I was worth it, he said with a smile.

There would have been a card too, I’m certain there was, but it’s the roses I remember. I didn’t have a vase big enough and had to divide them between three.

I think this might be why Paul only bought me one dozen roses the following Valentine’s Day, but I might be wrong. But still, they were really nice roses with a pretty card too – an arty card, and inside he’d signed it with the lines from his favourite Byron poem.

But on the Valentine’s Day of the third year of marriage there was no bouquet – just a single red rose with a bog-standard card and an excuse that he’d been busy at work. He said that by the time he arrived at the florist, single roses were all that was left.

The flowers came with a card, as always, inscribed with his favourite lines inside by Byron that he no longer passed off as his own.

The years went by and we settled into married life, the pair of us working hard and doing our best to make time for each other at weekends.

It wasn’t always easy. Mum never told me how hard it could be. But we made it, Paul and I, we kept trying. And when Rosie came along, I needed Mum more than ever, for her wisdom and experience and strength.

By the time of our seventh year of marriage the Valentine’s cards we sent each other were supermarket specials and any flowers I received were picked up at the petrol station. But still, it’s the thought that counts – right?

The one that came today

There’s a brisk knock at the bedroom door. “Are you decent?” Paul shouts. I sit up in bed and straighten the duvet. “I’m decent!” I yell back. The door pushes open and Paul appears with a tray in his hands. On it there are three glasses of orange juice and a plate on which I can see three slices of toast. Behind Paul is our daughter who shyly walks into our bedroom with her hands behind her back.

“I made breakfast, Mummy,” Rosie tells me proudly as she walks round to my side of the bed.

“What have you got behind your back?” I tease her.

She swings her hands forward and thrusts a piece of red card onto the breakfast tray. On it are round shapes that she’s drawn and coloured in – circles of red and pink. The card is folded in two and so I lift the flap carefully to peek inside. I see my daughter’s handwriting, or at least I think that’s what it is. There’s a scribble and a line of kisses which I know Paul must have helped her to write.

“It’s all her own work,” Paul smiles as he sits down on the bed. “And she insisted we both bring you breakfast in bed today too.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mummy,” Rosie says.

There is no card from Paul this year, no flowers any more. But I don’t care. I have all that I need here now.

I pick up my slice of warm, buttered toast and my glass of juice from the tray. Paul leans across the bed to me and kisses my cheek as Rosie snuggles into my side.

“Happy Valentine’s Day from us both,” he says softly.

Just a single RED ROSE, a bogstandard CARD and an EXCUSE