St Valentine’s Day - The power of love

Today, despite the inevitable intrusions of shameless commercialism, many of us will celebrate the idea of romantic love and all of the pleasures that entails.

Some of us will succumb to the blandishments of the day and feel it necessary to buy at least a dozen red roses and fret dreadfully if they have left it too late to book a table at the restaurant their partner enjoys most.

Others, no less passionate, will express their love in different, less demonstrative or prescriptive ways. Others still will use it as an a excuse to give vent to passions as wild as Heathcliff’s and, usually, they will be as unsuccessful as Emily Brontë’s frustrated leading man. More might use it as an occasion to reiterate truths long silent and almost taken for granted.

But no matter how the feast of St Valentine is celebrated it will remind us of the power of the emotions and relationships that shape and drive our lives.