With Valentines Day just around the corner, there will be many of you at a loss to know how best to express your undying love.
There are those sloppy cards that drip with tender emotion, you can say it with flowers, or you can take your sweetheart out for a nosh. Quite frankly, none of these have ever appealed to me simply because they are not permanent.
That expensive Valentines card with stay up on the mantle-shelf for a few weeks then find itself in the trash can. The gorgeous bunch of red roses will wilt and die….then smell. That candle lit dinner that you shared with your loved one will no doubt keep you up all night with a bout of indigestion and become anything but a fond memory.
Vincent van Gogh had the right idea of course, but unfortunately disfigurement as a means to an end is unacceptable these days..
So how do we go about proving our tender devotion?
Carving hearts on trees is pretty permanent, and from my own experience, there`s a tree in my home town that still bears my initials to this day. What happened to Elsie Bagwash is another story!
Ah me! How deceptive true love really is. Today you can be head over heels, and tomorrow may well prove how wrong you were about your loving sweetheart.
Time itself is not enough, for there`s many a marriage break up after the kids have left school, and one`s hair is getting thin. We all like to think we have found the ideal partner, and there are ways and means of keeping it that way. Take the Nguni tribe in Northern Tanganyika, for instance. The marriage ceremony has one peculiarity that has always amused me.
With the respective families standing around, the groom gently lifts the bridal veil from his lovely new wife, takes three steps back, and proceeds to knock the poor girls teeth out. No-one…but no-one is going to take a shine to his Missus after that!
Hey! I`m not suggesting that you adopt this charming custom, given time, no doubt nature will do it for you.
