As we’re rapidly approaching Valentines Day, which as well as being the most romantic day of the year (allegedly!) it is also the busiest single day for our balloon-in-a-box deliveries, so we thought it might be interesting to find out a little more about where the tradition of Valentines Day came from.

It would appear that it all started back as early as the fourth century B.C. The Romans, as part of a young mans rite to passage to the God Lupercus, held a sort of Love Lottery. The names of all the teenage women were placed in a box and each adolescent man drew a name at random and was ‘assigned’ the woman as a companion for a year, after which another lottery was staged. Not the most romantic way to find a partner but it must have helped to avoid any awkward break-ups! After eight hundred years of this the early church fathers wanted to put a stop to a practice that they felt was very cruel so they sought an answer in Valentine, a bishop who had been martyred two hundred years earlier.

Apparently St. Valentine was a priest near Rome during the reign of Claudius-II who had issued an edit banning marriage. The Roman Empire was struggling from a lack of quality administrators and frequent civil strife and the Gauls, Slavs, Huns, Turks and Mongolians were increasing their pressure on the Empire’s boundaries. Claudius-II wanted to recruit the most able men as soldiers and officers and he felt that married men were too attached, emotionally, to their families and therefore made poor soldiers so in order to get the best recruits he banned marriage!

Valentine, who was a bishop at the time decided to help the traumatised young lovers by meeting them in a secret place and joining them in marriage. Of course Claudius-II was not happy about this when he found out what had been happening and promptly had Valentine arrested. Although Claudius-II gave Valentine a chance to avoid execution by offering him the choice of converting to the Roman Gods Valentine refused and Valentine was executed (there seems to be a bit of conflict from sources as to the date of the execution but most seem to believe it was on February 14th).

While Valentine was awaiting his execution his jailor – Asterius asked him to heal his blind daughter and apparently, through his faith, Valentine restored her sight. Just before he was executed he requested a pen and paper and left her a note that simply read ‘from your Valentine’.

Valentine later became a patron Saint and was made the spiritual overseer of an annual festival where young Romans offered woman that they admired handwritten notes of affection which bore Valentines name on February 14th. The Valentines Day card (or even balloon!) spread with the onset of Christianity and is now celebrated all over the world.

As retailers, no matter what we think personally we are forced to start rolling out the Christmas stock earlier and earlier every year. It seems inevitable that no sooner have the kids gone back to school after the summer holidays you're going to walk into a shop somewhere and find Christmas cards and gifts already starting to appear. If it was down to us Christmas would be left in December, where it belongs, but unfortunately in order to compete in the High Street we have to join in.

But there are limits! We were horrified when the rep from Ling Cards came out to see us on Wednesday (11th Jan) to arrange an uplift on the Christmas cards that were left over from this years stock asked if we'd like to place our order for Christmas 2006 while we were at it! We've only just got over this one - WE DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT NEXT CHRISTMAS IN JANUARY!!!

Whereas we realise that the manufacturers have to get geared up much earlier than the retailers in order to meet demand is it too much to ask to have at least one Christmas free month before we have to start thinking about it again? Bah Humbug!

In a moment of weakness I agreed to deliver a Balloon In A Box locally, for a customer who lives in France, on New Years Day. Like all the other gift delivery companies we were closed on New Years Day because the only possible way to deliver anything was to take it there ourselves, not to mention the fact that we fancied a day off! However, the delivery address was only ten minutes away by car and the only plans that Alison and I had made for New Years Day were to have a lazy day and recover from a little over indulgence the night before so it was no real difficulty to take a few minutes out of the day to deliver a balloon. The only flaw in my logic was that John (Alison's husband) had the only car in the household - and he was in Lancashire, with their daughter, visiting his mum.

It was considerably more that ten minutes away by foot, but I had agreed to do it and we didn’t want to let the customer down! So we decided to go for it - kill two birds with one stone and take Jade for a walk, clear our booze muddled brains and deliver the balloon. The fact that the address was opposite a very nice country pub called The Fox and Goose helped clinch the decision.

So we walked, and walked, and walked! Jade had a great time, but hindsight is such a wonderful thing, I think we may have been a little adventurous. The field we cut across was really really muddy and by the time we'd made it across it our boots felt like they weighed a tonne.

My head ached, my legs ached, I had blisters on my feet caused by the totally inappropriate footwear I chose for the trek, but we got the balloon there much to the delight of a lovely little boy who had just turned two years old. We popped into the pub, just for a rest of course, stared at a couple of Jack Daniels and Diet Cokes for a while then began the equally arduous return trip. But even though the walk felt a lot longer than it really was it certainly cleared the cobwebs and apart from the blisters I felt much better for it, and it was worth it to see the look on the birthday boy’s face. Now, where else could you buy a gift from and get it delivered on New Years Day? Don’t say we don’t go the extra mile (literally) for our customers

Welcome to 2006!

Cathy :)

Cathy, Alison and everyone at 81 Red Balloons would like to wish all our family, friends and customers past, present and future a very happy New Year and we hope you all have a great 2006.

Cheers

:)

‘Tis the season to be jolly and all that and yesterday we decided, for the second time, that if we can't beat the Tuesday Market in our little village then we'll join 'em! Alison did the first week, after I pulled the "I've got a cold' card so despite the remnants of a really annoying cough I stood outside in the freezing cold, and occasional shower, flogging our wares.

I got to pitch up next to Gary, or "The Duck Man" as he is more commonly known in Odiham. It's amazing just how many people want wooden Ducks! We are in the wrong business! Even I succumbed eventually and came back with a little wooden duckling of my very own :)

And you know what? I quite enjoyed it! There was a real sense of community amongst the market traders. It's only a small market, no more than 6 stalls at the moment, and to be honest it's always been a source of friction amongst the retailers in the village. Parking is hard enough as it is, but when the Tuesday Market takes 10 parking spaces out for 4 hours it's impossible! So, just like everyone else, we moaned! "Our shop is always quiet on a Tuesday" we said. "It's our worse day of the week" we whined! Then Alison suggested we give it a go ourselves and set up our well-worn Gazebo, take a few chocs out, some toys, and a Christmas card or two and see what happens. So we did!

Although the market itself will never pay for our retirement the strange thing is as soon as one of us stood outside freezing to death for the morning the shop got busier! Go figure! And we didn't do too badly on the stall so all in all it's been worth it. We'll stick it out until Christmas then maybe do it once a month in the New Year.

So if you happen to be passing through Odiham on a Tuesday morning please feel free to visit our stall, we’re the one with lots of Gifts, Chocolate, Christmas decorations, Christmas cards and a few toys on, stuck at the end next to the tribe of wooden ducks, oh and feel free to bring coffee – all donations greatly received!

Cathy :)