Yesterday was Valentines Day. Over commercialised and lacking originality the day is often the same year after year. 2021 though , felt a little different because everything feels different. There seemed to be less of a focus on romantic love and more on community love. Which is jolly convenient as the image above is about all sorts of Love. The picture above is the Love Tree , found just outside Saltash in Cornwall and the subject of a blog last year. Link below.

https://theoldmortuary.design/2020/02/13/love-tree-jelly-shoe/

It is a local focus for fetish objects to do with love of all sorts. Talisman and mementoes are hidden in roots and the cracks and crevaces of the trunk of this old Elm tree. The custom is hundreds of years old.

The image of the tree was supposed to be artfully printed in gold foil on an abstract watercolour background. The original image and the painted backgrounds are lost in a print shop , victims of the Lockdowns. The exhibition they were intended for never happened. Soon I am going to learn to do Linocut Printing so that this image can have a new and different future.

Different as it turns out is the theme for this blog.

My Valentines Day was made very different by attending a local sports club to receive my first Vaccine against Covid 19. A brilliantly organised and efficient service staffed by happy and helpful volunteers. A triumph of Science and humanity against a difficult adversary. Aided and abetted in this country by poor political decisions.

My umbrella, needed, on the day, because of the torrential rain, but also, as it happens, as a metaphor for a brighter future post vaccine.

I am very grateful.