Valentines Day

On my way out of Marks and Spencer where I went to buy some fish for today's lunch, I stumbled across tulips and suddenly realizing it's Valentines Day. I decided to buy a bunch and went for the cheaper £3 option of the red and yellow flowers, after all, at least in my own opinion it's the intention that matters, or perhaps I'm just a miser.

When I was waiting in a queue a very old lady wearing a granny outfit, a scarf and a Coke bottle glasses stood behind me, when I looked into her basket all I found was two items: four scones and a simple bunch of daffodils, that's all she was buying. It immediately made me wonder, of why (other than financial reasons), she's only buying those two things. It was more likely than not that her husband was dead (she looked like she was approaching her 90s). Perhaps he used to buy her those same daffodils, or even cut them straight from the garden if the year was warm and gave it to her on Valentines Day.

With him gone, she was not standing here queuing behind me to buy flowers, she was buying the memory of her husband giving them to her on Valentines Day and how it made her feel. She only needed those two things in her shopping basket to go on another day in this world so much different since she was young. And here I was right next to her, and it was more than likely than in years to come it will be my wife queuing this way, which lead me to some uncharted territories I didn't want to explore at that time.

My cashier teared the price tag of and agreed that even though not the most fancy looking flowers they looked pretty.