Valentine's Day, do you celebrate it?

Mummy Mojo's Hearts and Flowers String Bunting

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

["For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]

Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules (1382)


Valentine's Day, do you celebrate it, or do you hate it, think its commercially crass and should be ignored?

I fall somewhere between the two.

I think a day to celebrate love is a good thing, love after all, is one of the things that makes the world go round. However, you don't have to buy into the consumerism that builds to a frenetic crescendo as we come closer to February 14th.

Don't buy into the expense and hype of the day. Keep it simple. Do something special for your beloved that doesn't cost the earth, both financially and ecologically.

I will be telling my beloved wife that I love her, that she makes my heart sing, that the last 16 years have been full of joy and that I am fllled with delight to be sharing my life with her. I will then give her a massive hug and kiss and we'll share a box of chocolates that I will buy from a local chocolate maker and a bottle of local, organic sparkling wine aka Champagne.

 Keep your Valentine's Day, simply, special and local.

Beer cake to celebrate Australia Day

Happy Australia Day!

May we all join hearts today in celebrating a special land, loved by many people with a unique Indigenous population who have survived in spite of all their hardships to remind us silly 'modernists' how vital this land is.

Thanks to my good friend KM for those wise words.

To me, today is a mourning day for the Indigenous Australian, as well as a celebratory day for all of us who are lucky to have immigrated to live in our blessed land. I am a grandchild of refugees, my grandparents escaped German, French, Scottish and English economic poverty in the early 20th century, to come to a land where prosperity might be possible. It took three generations though, my Pop used to joke that they had swapped cold, wet and miserable poverty, for warm, hot, miserable poverty. But there were more opportunities and I went to University thanks to Mr Whitlam.

Keep scrolling for the Beer Cake ...

I love Australia, but I don't like the jingoism that I see, the intolerance of difference, be it religious, sexual preference, colour, or anything else, these lead to war and hatred of difference. Difference and diversity makes us strong, let's embrace it.

As the seldom sung second verse of the Australian National Anthem states:

Beneath our radiant southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

OK, rant over, here's a Beer Cake recipe to enjoy from the ABC Central Victorian website. I have made it for our Australian Day party at a friends place. Beer, yep, I'm an Aussie mate!