Celebrate Valentine’s Day, UK-style

The planet Venus is associated with love and pleasure shared with another, romance and harmony in our emotional attachments, marriages, friendships and other unions. The rare alignment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, the astrological string of pearls, is presently noticeable on a clear night from UK, this energy is very becoming to Valentines and sweethearts.

Scouting around all the gifts available for Valentines day, among the romantic DVD’s, Valentine vacations, scarlet underwear for men and women, Swarovski crystal pendants, love poems and other heart shaped paraphernalia this reporter came across surely the most extravagant bunch of flowers ever…1,000 stems of the world’s tallest roses from

Arena Flowers at £9,000 (roughly enough to feed about 20,000 impoverished starving children for a day) the loved one will receive (free delivery if ordered in time), a bunch of one thousand stems of red South American roses measuring an amazing 150cms, nearly five feet in length. Arena Flowers is based in UK but the website claims to have considerable experience in flower delivery to India. If the love-struck sender is of slenderer means and more ecologically minded then perhaps living trees and shrubs are more fitting. TreesDirect strapline is “to give and to grow” a mantra loving couples might identify with. TreesDirect’s muse is Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love, who was originally associated with gardens, grace and beauty; roses, myrtle and poppies were her favourite plants. TreesDirect are offering plants, from £25 to £60, dressed in a hessian sack or terracotta pot, tied with a red satin ribbon and a hand-written valentine’s card with planting instructions.

Moreover, it is said that chocolate is the flavour of love, allegedly chocolate causes our brains to release endorphins, chemicals that make us feel lovely and happy. Chantal Coady, founder and creative director of Rococo Chocolates, has spent her whole life dedicated to the chocolate experience.

Moreover, it is said that chocolate is the flavour of love, allegedly chocolate causes our brains to release endorphins, chemicals that make us feel lovely and happy. Chantal Coady, founder and creative director of Rococo Chocolates, has spent her whole life dedicated to the chocolate experience. From being obsessed with chocolate as a child, to selling chocolates in Harrods, Coady always felt something was missing in chocolate retailing. Now with 3 Rococo shops in London, she is as much in love with chocolate as ever. Her perfect little shops sell fantasy shapes of chocolate, lobsters, chickens, cats and cows and deceptive truffle filled chocolate impersonations of boiled mini potatoes or olives. For Valentine day this year Coady has created a darling chocolate quartet of two Laurent Perrier pink champagne ganaches with a dash of raspberry Chambord, one zingy blackcurrant & violet heart caramel ganache with a dark chocolate heart shell and a rose praline heart in a milk chocolate heart shell. All for £6.50p in the Rococo signature packaging printed with indigo engravings of antique chocolate moulds. Although the Valentine’s retail is window is roughly only three days, the day before 14^th Feb, 14^th and the day after for those who forgot and are trying to make amends, unlike flower retailers Rococo do not enhance their prices for special retail occasions.