Valentine’s Day
Peter met me at the bell tower door this morning with five yellow roses.* Not quite, perhaps, as in the picture that this statement is creating in your minds. Peter and five yellow roses met me at the tower door. The roses, unfortunately, were in Peter’s knapsack** and in the process of getting them out he busted the heads off two of them.
Sigh.
But we are resourceful. I bought two more yellow roses at the florist’s—and some tulips—and I now have seven yellow roses. 
Variously arranged.***
Sunday morning, meanwhile, has morphed into the time I spend pretending to have a conservatory, when in fact what I have is some very crowded windowsills at the cottage.
Never come between a hyacinth and its destiny. And its destiny is to tip over. 
I suppose I could try nailing them to the windowsill. But pulling the nails out will leave marks. And there are always more hyacinths.
And you will remember that I had cleverly propped the primrose one up on a pile of magazines? This happened in a day, hippeastrum stems grow so fast when they really get going.
So. More magazines.
I’m not making any of this up, you know.****
And this is the hippeastrum you keep seeing the stems of. It really is this amazing dark red colour. Which is also to say pretty well impossible to get a good photo of. 
. . . So, today, when I finally got down to the mews and turned the computer on, I rushed to my inbox to open (finally) an email Peter had sent me a few days ago and then (laconically) suggested that I might want to wait till Valentine’s Day to read it. I assumed, of course, it was from Peter. This is what it said:
Though shoulder-socket tearing
And licking each ensnaring
Foulness as we’re wayfaring
Provoke volcanic swearing,
We still get sofa-sharing.
Dear Goddess, thanks for caring
Your Dark Chaotic pairing
Send you their love unsparing.
Awwwwwwww. Yes, we had extra sofa time today. While Peter made dinner. . . .
* * *
* I assume because he feels there’s enough pink^ in my life still. (I did finally cut out the lily stamens when lily pollen was starting to turn hellhounds orange. I know this is cheating. It’s a small kitchen.) 
^ Want. Want. Must have. http://www.rhsplants.co.uk/product/_/ClassID.2000006935/
THIRTY FIVE FRELLING QUID FOR A WATERING CAN? Never mind. It’s pink. Hot-blasted rocket-proof enamelled pink from Hephaestus’ own forge. And my £2.99 plastic ones are finding this weather a trial and I’m not sure either of them holds water any more.
** It entirely escapes me why he put them in his knapsack. It’s like fifteen seconds from the church to the florist.
*** One of the charities I subscribe to is sponsor-a-seeing-eye-puppy. You get a free calendar for your efforts. 
You get a free calendar that arrives in the middle of February. ^
^ Much better organised is Dogs Trust where I sponsor (you will not be amazed to hear) a lurcher.+ You get a valentine from your dog. This year it’s a refrigerator magnet. Too frelling cute.
+ Everybody know what a lurcher is? It’s a common term over here but not so much, I think, in the States (dunno about the rest of the English speaking globe). Lurcher = sighthound x something that isn’t a sighthound. Purists insist the something has to be a working dog. Purists also insist that sighthound x sighthound crosses, like my hellhounds, are longdogs, but mostly all sighthound crosses end up being called lurchers.
****And just think, if I had a proper conservatory I could have lots and lots of plants being perverse. And foolish.
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