Life

Nuala McCann: Don't worry about Valentine's Day - there are better, brighter days ahead

Nuala's new scales light up so you can actually read the number, like the New Year's Eve countdown clock in Times Square.
Nuala's new scales light up so you can actually read the number, like the New Year's Eve countdown clock in Times Square. Nuala's new scales light up so you can actually read the number, like the New Year's Eve countdown clock in Times Square.

NEVER mind Valentine's Day.

Is this thing over yet?

Many people seem to think the pandemic is.

We're cautiously cautious and vaguely optimistic as usual.

But our routines have taken root and we can't see beyond socially distanced walks on a Sunday for a chat with the horses up in the big field.

So while many of us will be thinking thoughts of love and a meal out in a restaurant, we'd just kill for a takeaway.

As the poet wrote, we're taking it slowly.

"I wake to sleep and take my waking slow... I learn by going where I have to go."

The wild weather of last weekend got in the way of our weekly Sunday pilgrimage to the field.

Some of us decided that it was too wet and windy and one of us desperately wanted the walk and tried to guilt trip the others.

"Molly and Kaiser will be standing at that fence so disappointed to miss us," he sighed.

And yes, we have had so few meaningful connections with our close friends in the past two years, that we know the horses by name and might even put them on next year's Christmas card list.

To add to the misery of a wet Sunday in February, one of us - me - tried to put on her raincoat, only to find that Christmas had got in the way of the zip.

By that, I mean, that the coat has miraculously shrunk since November or the person putting it on has got larger.

On account of the fact that all of my clothes appear to have shrunk - even when I haven't washed them - I invested in a new set of scales.

I had thrown out the old set months ago. My eyesight has got so bad that it proved impossible to read the dial without squatting at an angle like an Olympic skier about to take off for the slalom jump.

The new scales light up so you can actually read the number - think that huge countdown clock in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

When I stood on the scales, the number flashed up and I leapt off in shock.

If those scales could talk, they would have said: "One at a time."

Last time I was this heavy I was 10 months pregnant. Now, there is no such excuse.

And so, whilst indeed this is Valentine's Day and naturally a day of wine, roses and chocolates - yes, chocolates that sing siren songs from the supermarket shelves - I have divorced all that sugar.

I'm keeping my mouth zipped.

The larder is creaking with eggs, lettuce, carrots and spring onions.

There are small notes written about the places but none of them are love notes.

They say things like: "Those who indulge bulge."

"A minute on the lips, forever on the hips."

But here's the most positive thing.

I'm sitting typing under the big light that is meant to ease the old SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder - and I can see that the light outside in our garden is now roughly equivalent to the beams emanating from my big light.

The days are definitely on the turn. It is magical.

On a long ago day last year, I planted snowdrops "in the green" from mum's garden in my own front garden. Now they're raising shy heads from the soil.

Out walking by the river last week, a robin hopped along the path towards me, eyed me up close and almost perched on top of my shoe.

Some say robins are loved ones coming back to visit.

I like to think it's my mother telling me the snowdrops are beautiful and she's doing absolutely fine, thank you very much.

She may also be wondering what I did with her old shopping basket.

It dated from the days when women wore red lipstick and high heels to go to the clothes line and carried wicker baskets under their arms to do the shop.

I spied it in our attic and it whisked me back to Lipton's and Crazy Prices and me begging ma for a Bird's Eye mousse at the checkout.

You have to steel your heart when parting with everyday things rich with memory.

"It's up to you," said the man at the recycling centre as I hovered, clinging to the basket as I used to cling to my mother's knees at children's parties.

In the end, I let it go... turning my face to brighter days ahead.