It will be Valentine’s Day next week and I feel obliged to acknowledge it, although I am not a huge fan and generally ignore the day – I am not sure why one is supposed to profess love to someone on this day rather than any other and I dislike the pressure that is put on people to buy roses and chocolates and go out for expensive meals and what not. The day used to be about sending messages to people – I do like the elaborate Victorian Valentine cards – and even when I was young (admittedly a long time ago) it was still more about sending cards and disclosing secret crushes than it seems to be now.
In case you do not already know, St Valentine was an early Christian Martyr, executed in Rome on 14 February 273, probably because he was a very successful evangelist. From the High Middle Ages his Feast Day on 14 February was associated with logistics(!) He is also the patron saint of the city of Terni in Italy, of epilepsy and of beekeepers. He was believed to have cured a girl of blindness amongst other miracles and one embellishment of the story is that just before his execution he was said to have sent her a note signed ‘from your Valentine’ – which may have inspired the messages we send today. Another legend about him is that he defied the orders of the Emperor and secretly performed Christian weddings for couples, allowing the husbands involved to escape conscription into the Roman army. The account mentions that, in order to remind these men of their vows and God’s love, St Valentine cut hearts from parchment to give to them, which might be a reason for the use of hearts on Valentines Day.
It is impossible to ignore Valentine’s Day if you are in retail. When I had my coffee shop in Hackney, one of my staff, given a free rein and being a talented artist, painted an enormous V for Vendetta/Valentines in my shop window with a very realistic bullet hole in the middle of it and some red blood. I have a slightly warped sense of humour and found it amusing although it did cause some consternation at the street because it was not entirely improbable that there might be a bullet hole in the window. I do not think something like that would work here in Fakenham and I may have softened over the years. Instead, I resort to the traditional colours of the season – pinks and reds in my window display, and restrain myself from doing anything too shocking.
Having now dealt with Valentine’s Day, let me remind you that we have things happening in the shop all month. Firstly, we have our regular Social Stitchers sessions as follows:
Tuesday 10 February 2pm to 4pm
Saturday 21 February 2pm to 4pm
And as usual, we welcome anyone who wants to come and sit and knit or crochet or embroider with us on any Saturday afternoon between 2 and 4pm.
Our workshops this month are:
14 February: Introduction to Knitting 10am to 1pm (the perfect Valentine’s present?)
21 February: Moving on from Crocheting Granny Squares 10am to 1pm and Learn to Knit Socks on Double Pointed Needles from 4 to 5pm
28 February: Learn to Crochet Granny Squares 10am to 1pm
I know that I should be encouraging people to buy their special people yarn and needles and accessories as demonstrations of their love but I cannot bring myself to do it with any conviction. This is about as strong as my Valentine’s Day marketing is likely to get! I do hope I might see you over the month however, at one of the events or just in the shop, buying yarn or needles or accessories because you want to.