Technically this is our third Valentine’s Day as a couple, but we’ve been long distance for the previous two. I’m not anti-Valentines (anymore) but I’m not a Hallmark-Valentines person either. I like that there is a day to just enjoy each other’s company and spend time together; it could be randomly October 3rd for no particular reason, or May 22nd… but it happens to be February 14th. We could go against convention and set our own Day, but I don’t expect a giant show with a ginormous card and a huge bouquet of flowers and a giant heart shaped box of chocolates and a life-size teddy bear… that’s just ridiculous. What we did was perfect.

We planned to go for late lunch in Enfield… but Craig surprised me! We went in to Starbucksto grab a coffee and Craig gave me some money and said to get a gift for “us” to share. I was to surprise him with anything I wanted. I ended up getting CSI: Las Vegas Season 4 and now I’m looking at a Massage Book on Amazon. Craig really likes massages, but has never had a professional one (I did offer for Valentines Day but it’s a bit more romantic to learn how to massage properly for him). After we met back up, the plan was to walk to the Restaurant and have some food.

While I was shopping Craig had picked up a loaf of bread and we went for a lovely walk along the canal and fed the birds. It was really fun and just low-key and I laughed a lot a the ducks. Some birds I’d never seen before, and the geese hounding Craig for bread. It was really good fun and the perfect way to spend our afternoon together. One of those romantic scenes you see in movies with the cheesy music.

One of the parks in Enfield

The public footpath along the canal

 
The first few that we encountered

Then more showed up!

 
I’ve never seen those ducks with the rust-coloured heads, or that crazy black bird with the white head. It had the craaziest scream/squawk!

 
… We’re being followed!

 
This one is like the black one with the white head… they looked like chickens! Any idea what they are?

Then instead of going to a restaurant (and battling the Valentines Rush) we had a late picnic lunch in the park next to the canal – Craig had picked up sandwiches and brought wine glasses and juice from the house. Wine glasses at our picnic!

We did get each other non-conventional gifts (read: not flowers & chocolates) – Craig got me the Sex and the City Shoebox (Entire Series: Season 1 – 6 boxset). I bought him a multi-region portable DVD player on eBay to replace his portable DVD player that just died (but it was only Region 2).