Funny Valentine

Another fabulous St Valentine’s evening at Stepple thanks to Bunny and Colonel Mustard’s famous couples supper.

Gaylord looked splendid in his Barney Rubble costume although lost one of his latex bare feet in the ha ha as we were leaving.

I'd had second thoughts about the leopard-print balcony bra but it was my back-combed spray-dyed black hair that caused most mirth.

"What a ghastly wig," Minnie Mouse announced when she saw me. This, I felt, was rich coming from an inebriated 15 stone woman in an over-stuffed red and white spotted skirt who looked like a pregnant hamster.

"I'm not wearing a wig," I told her, briskly.

"Good grief!" she continued. "I never realised you had so much hair."

I was on a roll then. "Yes, you and I are lucky in the luxuriant hair growth department, aren't we?" I said.

 "Oh, no," she said, poking pudgy white-gloved fingers into her fringe. "My hair's really thin."

"Actually, I was looking at your whiskers, " I said and shot off to recharge my glass before she could answer.

Bunny and Col M are far too young and exciting to imitate Charles and Camilla but this evening, side by side in the vestibule wearing county attire, pearls and a pinky ring, they were perfect royal doppelgangers.

It was harder to find anything remotely recognisable about Bonny’s Clyde (one really shouldn’t attempt to do Warren Beatty with a treble chin) and dear old Ginger, whose wig took on a life of its own after her fourth glass of wine, was badly let down by her Fred Astaire.

But sitting round the kitchen table reminiscing; the weddings, the births of our beautiful children, the tears, laughter, ups and downs, the love shared between all of us as couples was plain to see. The fire of a million cherished memories burns brightly within us all.

We moan, bicker, berate and bluster, nit-pick and nag and, all too often, forget how blessed we are to have found each other.  We side-step emotions, refuse to compromise and, sometimes, dwell on the past and who we were instead of celebrating the alchemy of love and who we are.

Love is selfish. It touches us all in so many unfathomable, scary and surprising ways. It breaks us, completes and confuses, delights and deserts us.

It’s part of the journey which many of us find is far more exciting and satisfying than the destination.

And even if it is easier to wait for and welcome in than it is to let go, none of us should ever forget it.

Some years ago, a dear friend and one of the sweetest women on God’s green earth, was watching her new husband chatting to guests at their wedding.

Eccentric in two-toned stack heels and an ill-fitting tail coat, he could easily have been mistaken for one of those card -shuffling magicians who have, nowadays, become so mystifyingly fashionable at mile-stone celebrations.

The elephant in the candy-striped marquee that bright August afternoon that all of us recognised but refused to speak of was, of course, how this funny little man could have wooed and won such a stunning, warm and witty woman

But I remember he looked across at her, just for a moment, held her gaze and smiled.

“He’s a sanctuary for my battered heart,” my friend told me.

Happy Valentine’s Day.