Valentine’s Day is the retailers’ Post Christmas money maker. It’s their chance to raise prices sky high after the January sales and they do this with gusto!

I’m a romantic and love a grand gesture but seeing the price of flowers, cuddly toys and special Valentine menus makes me feel like hiding and giving the 14th a miss or at least being more creative about how to celebrate.

Being a savvy shopper, I purchased this ‘pug of love’ on the 15th. Oscar doesn’t mind, he’s a dog!

I wondered how new this commercial high of February originated and discovered that it is actually quite ancient and may have been started by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1375. When he wrote of courtly love in ‘Parliament of Foules’ I’m sure he couldn’t envisage ‘fools’ paying £5 or more for a single rose!

Chaucer’s poem refers to February 14 as the day birds (and humans) come together to find a mate.
“For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate,”

St Valentine is the patron saint of not only lovers but beekeepers too. It seems to me that it is not the beekeepers that get ‘stung’ on his special day but enamoured lovers who want to shower their sweethearts with tokens of their affection and find prices are hiked up!

Are you thinking I should be more altruistic and let the retailers have their day? After all Mother’s Day, the replacement of Mothering Sunday, is a month away. Now don’t get me started on that!