Who was St. Valentine? You may well ask, as there were apparently quite a few, and some were martyred. It all started way back in Roman times, but really only got going in 1590 with Edmund Spenser's famous line: "She bathed with roses red and violets blue, and all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew". This was embellished in "Gammer Gurton's Garland" of 1784 Nursery Rhymes: " The Rose is red, the violet's blue, The honey's sweet, and so are you. Thou art my love and I am thine etc".
Since then amazingly St.V-Day has spread world wide, with just about every country developing its own variation. However, in Saudi Arabia last year the sale of anything red was forbidden as being "Anti-Christian" or something, leading to a black market in red roses and so on. Weird.
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So today is supposed to be the day when the birds start mating, the roots of plants begin to grow, and Spring commences. In our own lives here, it is a day for getting together with good friends, sending electronic greetings, and having a singer come to entertain us with love songs....
4 comments:
It sounds like you will have a great day. I liked the sequence of photos the past years. The last photo with landscape and sky is just marvelous.
Good pictures, it is the first time I here this story about the birds. I only knew I had to take my wife to a restaurant.:-)
Greetings,
Filip
Thank you Larry! You will see the results of our day tomorrow!
You don't have to! You could take her to the movies and sit on the back row.....
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