Going to the chapel of love ….
I didn’t celebrate le fete de St Valentin this year. Actually, I don’t ever celebrate it. I always understood it was for wannabe lovers to declare their interest (anonymously) by the sending of a card or a gift to the object of their desire. At school, a post box was positioned in the foyer and we could pay 5p to post a card which would then be delivered on the big day to the classroom of your crush. You could send as many as you wanted, so some (admitedly including ever-hopeful me) would hedge their bets, all unsigned, the handwriting disguised and finished with a flourishing and mysterious X. On the day, the cards would be delivered by a crack team of first years and I would affect nonchalance when year after year there was no card in the pile for me.
Clock forward all these decades and Two Brains is my Valentine every day. Last summer we walked a glorious walk in the Cezallier to a little Chapel, originally built in the 13th century high high on a rocky outcrop looking over the Vallée de la Santoire and the Plateau du Limon. Battered by the elements it was in a sorry state when in the 19th Century it was entirely rebuilt but houses a bell dating from the mid 1600s and a confessional of similar age and a truly resilient Madonna dating with the original chapel. And the name of this lovely place – La Chappelle de St Valentine, naturally.
This piece is written in response to The Daily Press challenge to publish a photo demonstrating the Rule of Thirds. You will find all the other entries here
PS: The Victorians started another tradition which remained popular until the mid-20th Century. The Vinegar Card was basically a chance to wittily, waspishly, waggishly and entirely socially acceptably slanderously rebuff, dismiss and humiliate the recipient. I’m not ashamed to admit that in the past I could have sent one or two ….
