Valentine's Day Special

Winter

Dark in the afternoon

Lights on in every room

Winter came round so soon

BLISS isn't a fan of winter. Neither is MM. BLISS sort of jumps up and down when it's Spring. I listened to Aim's Cold Water Music in the car and the opening lines reminded me of her.

She is a fan, however...

...of Scrabble...

...a game she's annoyingly good at. Over twenty five years, and I've won only once (aided, in a three player game, by some strategic seat-picking), and, in fact, only once before come anywhere close to winning (when she disallowed a perfectly good 'fugue' – that was easily in excess of twenty five years ago. I'm not bitter, and (obviously) not hyper-competitive.

So my Valentines card has HAPPY, reading horizontally, in Scrabble tiles, with vertical VALENTINES and DAY leading off the HAPPY, which provides the 'A' in Valentines and the 'Y' in day.

Inside, she's signed it THE CHAMP, also in Scrabble tiles, hand drawn.

“The scores on the letters are right” she said.

I said something about replacing an 'A' with and 'I'. Not a very good response, but, as usual, I did what I could with the letters at my disposal.

I like the seasons

I don't have a favourite, and I don't buy into the national smalltalk obsession. There's weather every day, I find myself thinking, frequently, get over it.

But I must admit, after six to eight weeks of monsoon season, and without any big-time respite being forecast (the radio four weather bloke actually described next week as being “not exactly better, but less bad”), it's starting to wear a bit thin.

Crossing those spontaneous rivers flowing across the roads is tiresome and causes delays, and the landslips and sink holes are worrying. There's a lot of infrastructure depending on ground support, and it's a matter of time before roads, drains, and all manner of stuff starts feeling the lack of solid ground where it always was before.

Working outside becomes impossible when even pencil notes are washed away, paper turns to mush, and pockets fill up with rainwater.

Valentine's evening

Who says romance is dead. I made BLISS and DLL nice curries and even gave them a half share of the naan I'd bought to go with my chickpea and potato leftovers.

Admittedly, there was then an irreconcilable parting of the ways, as they went to watch Holby Casualty with the Midwife True Life Hospital with Manky Bits In Close Up (HD) while I watched the Sale v Saracens game. Big brawny sweaty blokes rolling around knee deep in mud. I repeat the question, who says romance is dead?