Fancy dress, Saint Valentine’s Day and more weather.

Looking at newspapers online, I came across a picture of Galicia’s regional president Nuñez Feijóo being carried around the Obradoiro Square in Santiago de Compostela by a bunch of people in fancy dress from the “entroido” celebrations. How did that come around so quickly? Are they burying the sardine already? I thought it coincided with Pancake Tuesday. Now I’m all confused. 

Here in the UK there are just hearts everywhere in the shops. The 14th February is approaching. This, of course is Valentine's Day or Valentines Day or Valentines' Day. Or it might be Lover's day, Lovers day, or Lovers' day? I've seen all those. The apostrophe seems to be an optional thing and a moveable feast. The sign writers seem to be unaware that the position or omission of the apostrophe changes what is actually being said. 

And then, what happened to the saint in the middle of all this. I somehow had it in my head that he was one of those saints who was martyred with a whole lot of arrows. Hence the connection with Cupid's arrow going into your heart. But on Googling him I found that little is known about how he died, just that he died on the 14th February. There is a slight possibility that the feast day was instituted to replace a pagan festival. That’s the sort of thing that happened long ago. 

Anyway, there it is; you can buy Valentine’s Day cards for all sorts of people, not just your boyfriend but also your dad. How strange. In Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd”, when Bathseba Everdene sent an anonymous card to stuffy William Boldwood, she meant it as a joke. However, he found out who sent it and they ended up married. Bathseba was following an old tradition of sending Valentine’s Day cards anonymously. Rather a nice tradition, in my opinion. Now it’s just another occasion for restaurants to advertise an event when couples who don’t talk to each other can go and have a “romantic” dinner date. Am I turning cynical? 

I read an article today about plastic surgery and the number of women, increasing all the time, who give in to the advertising. The main theme of the article was that maybe plastic surgery should not be advertised and that we should be finding alternatives to giving in to the pressure to look young and botoxed. Included in these adverts apparently are suggestions that plastic surgery might be a suitable gift for that romantic day I was talking about. "I love you so much that I feel the need to improve you." That works, I don't think! Personally, I might not be impressed by such a gift. 

 Meanwhile, the foul weather continues. Here is a picture of floods in Carballo in Galicia. 

 And another of floods in the Somerset Levels in the UK. 

And more bad weather is forecast for both the UK and Galicia. The latest storm to attack Galicia is called “Stephanie”. 

What I want to know is why storms need names at all and why, oh why, are they given women’s names?