While we’ve all wanted or had a significant other on Valentine’s Day, fate is not always sympathetic to our desire to be with someone on this one day of the year. Love happens on all days, at all times, and in many locations. Therefore, if you find yourself single on Valentine’s, take some time to remember all the people in your life who you love. Here are some non-traditional ways to show your appreciation for all those people who are special to you.

Dia de La Amistad

Dia de la Amistad is a Latin American holiday that celebrates friendship.  It is a day to remind your friends how much you care about them, for going out to movies, having dinner together and reminiscing about the times you have had together. Make Valentine’s your own Dia de La Amistad and send a heart-shaped card to your best friend, the person you couldn’t live without.

Dinner for Two

Invite a friend or family member who you haven’t seen for a while over for dinner. Try a recipe you have never done or watch a movie you have always been meaning to watch. If the two of you are in the mood, you can swap relationship advice, old love stories, and funny dating experiences. Then the two of you can enjoy the candles, chocolate and flowers knowing that you aren’t worrying about doing everything right or making a good impression. After all, your friends and family will always love and support you. It is time to recognize that.

A Day for You

Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love. One of the most important kinds of love is the love you have for yourself. This Valentine’s Day draw yourself a warm bath, curl up with your favorite read, and make yourself a nice cup of tea. Or if you are more active, go on a long run, bike ride or hike. If you are feeling confident, take a chance and message a person on your dating website. Who knows? Maybe this time next year, you will have two things to do on Valentine’s: Plan your pamper time and a romantic dinner for that new special someone.

Whatever you do, remember that you live in a world filled with love, romantic love being just one of the kinds. Valentine’s is the perfect opportunity to celebrate friendship, family and companionship with the people who will always stick by you, that definitely is worthy of a box of chocolates.

Why is it that frequent car adverts state ‘one lady owner’ as an inducement to purchase a car? Adverts stating ‘one male owner’ just don’t exist.

What is it that ‘one lady owner’ means a car is a good purchase? Do one lady owners really only poddle around town rather than burning up the motorway to go to the Edinburgh Festival , Glastonbury, Totnes, and a drive through the tunnel for a long French weekend.

Rubbish. One lady owner has often had all kinds of adventures in her car but those that put these ads in are usually traditional (boring old fart chauvanists) with traditional meal serving, husband knows best, wives who have never dared drive further than the post office or the local school.

This means that the car is good, but if you are a woman buying it you sooooo want to meet the wife and somehow help her escape and see a life beyond the confines of her macho prison.

Trouble is some women are happy that way – no major bills to pay, no huge decisions to take, and all the long journeys in life navigated by somebody else.

At least many more of us steer our own course, and if we do own a poddly little car it takes us on so many adventures that it usually dies and gets scrapped rather than ending up (shamefully) as a ‘one lady owner’ ad.

The first cuddly toy is given to newborn babies and I know a lady in her eighties who still has her teddy bear (balding, tatty and missing an ear,) received on the day she arrived in the world.

Children usually have far too many cluttering up their beds, shelves and floorspace,and when you have a prune once in a while, will happily ditch those that aren’t absolute favourites, only to deliberately choose more when they peruse boot fairs or school fetes.

There is always a favourite though, and nobody in the family needs to ask as we all know the key cuddlies in each others lives.

To a child a cuddly toy becomes a friend, a hug, a recipient for anger, a sponge to soak up emotions, a guard and a comforter.

Older children still enjoy hugging the cuddly toy (in private at times of stress or misery) and like the comfort and familiarity of feeling there is a faithful unjudgmental friend (like a pet.)

For adults the toy has the comfort and familiarity of a childhood buddy and this becomes more valuable as the decades past.

Choosing a cuddly toy for a baby is a great privilege. Read more here.

Hit songs playing in cafe’s and pubs in television soaps and dramas., actors eating or drinking brand name products on films or television, sports shirts, ads on websites and blogs, stars endorsing perfume or make up… the list goes on. How can anyone bring children up to be free from consumerism when it is almost in the air we are breathing?

How is it that a burger company were ever allowed to get away with bribing kids to stay loyal by offering gifts, and calling unhealthy, fatty meals, happy?

How is it that fizzy drinks machines, emblazoned with the Coca cola logo ended up in schools?

Why is it that children end up wearing football shirts emblazoned with their product names, and because everyone thinks ‘football,’ few think why are we letting our kids walk around as glorified billboards?

What is it about snow that is so magical It puts everyone in a good mood and the entire country seems to cheer up.

While children run around throwing snowballs or making snowmen, adults join in or smile and chat to each other far more than usual. Those who aren’t elderly or disabled find excuses to stride through it while it is actually snowing.

Maybe its because it is fairly rare.

The downside is the slush, wet footprints, the cold and travelling but the positives are this merry childlike side of adults that seems to resurface, like magic when it arrives. Both melt away together and we all trudge back to adulthood.

With all this snow, I suddenly want to go out and buy an advent calendar…

I hate, absolutely and utterly hate it when people moan loudly about something they want you to hear, but don’t have the courage to come out and tell you.

They have loud conversations about something that you’ve done that annoyed them but just mention ‘when people leave their gate banging…’ or whatever it is.

Why can’t they just come and say, ‘do you mind not…or I’m sorry but your banging gate really gets on my nerves?’ If they are doing it close enough so you hear it they obviously want to challenge you so are they expecting you to just listen and meekly scuttle away and correct your behaviour? Is it that they fear confrontation but want to let you know?

Either way it is so annoying, I think I’ll go and stand near them and tell someone else, loudly, how much people that do it annoy me.

Family photo albums, adverisements with rosy happy children and playground conversation with friends never touch on this reality – the grotty side of children.

Wiping saucy or snotty fingers on wallpapered walls.

Those mysterious stains are best avoided

Bottom scratching.

Often when nervous which explains why they always do it in front of special guests, work colleagues or in formal public places, like museums.

Chewing food and talking or just chomping with a wide open mouth.

How many times do I have to remind them….?

Nose picking.

Alone or in public. Worse when snotty.

Drinking straight from juice or milk bottles in the fridge.

So there is that slight feeling of unease when pouring milk for friends or guests unless the bottle is newly opened.

Picking their scabs.

…and eating them.

Dirty smelly underwear .

Hidden under the bed, the mattress or found by the dog.

Farting.

Silently with the most awful smell and loud arguments that it wasn’t them or loudly (equally smelly, )accompanied by fits of the giggles.

Burping.

On purpose, repeatedly after fizzy drinks, competing with each other for the loudest.

Wiping their mouths after a meal.

On the clean teatowel which you discover when drying glasses and finding them smeared with baked bean sauce.

Trying to control the amount of chocolate children eat during the Easter Period is impossible. I buy them an egg each, and so does their father and Gary (boyfriend.) Then so do my parents, and my ex in-laws, both brothers (though it’s their wives that actually do it,) a couple of my friends,an old family friend and then one or two of their school friends.

It all amounts to a bucket-load of Easter eggs for each of them. I ration them but the sheer amount means chocolate treats for about six weeks or letting them go mad and eat them all in a week, so that we can get back to a reasonably healthy eating regime.

I try to stop them eating their way through their chocolate mountain too quickly while they try to negotiate for more and more.

We’re all relieved when the chocolate season is finally over!

I read the following in a press releast today.

‘A Survey from Born to Play states that 69% of UK Children want to stay at home this Easter. Children between the ages of three and nine who were questioned said that they would most like to play at home.’

When I asked my children, they did want to go out for the day. Ideas included a trip to EuroDisney, Bowling, Legoland,Thorpe Park, The Tower of London, Paintballing, or the London Eye. The only problem was that none of them could agree on a location.

My suggestion that they might be happier spending the holiday playing at home was met with rolling eyes and groans of dismay.

Thinking of friends children I think that they would have the same reaction. Children love trips.

I can only conclude that the survey was carried out on children that attend ballet, karate, piano, horse-riding, art, and other extra curricular activities and are taken on so many improving trips in their holidays that they are desperate for free time to play at home.

Can that really be the majority?

Why are children so desperate to ensure everything is absolutely fair, down to the amount of chips on a plate or five minutes extra bedtime?

Explanations about later bedtimes being more appropriate for older children, or that the youngest may need more help with homework are met with sulks and tantrums, or woeful looks which interpreted mean ‘you love them more than me.’

Yet when they want something, their differences are used to work in their favour.

‘But I am the youngest I shouldn’t have to tidy up as much as the others.’

‘I’m older so I should have more.’

‘I’m the oldest so I get to choose the film.’

‘I’m a girl so I shouldn’t have to carrry so much.’

‘I’m a boy, why should I learn to cook.’

Yes unfortunately despite my best efforts children themselves will use their sex to try to gain advantage! I comfort myself with the thought that they would use the colour of their hair or their shoe size if it would get them what they wanted at that moment.

Maybe all this is because deep down they know that life is not fair and while they are children they want to milk as much fairness as they can!