13/02/2026
With this weekend marking Valentine’s Day, it only seems fitting to address this subject in my weekly newsletter, which may or may not be music to your ears! Valentine’s Day always spurs a debate, it is a day people love to hate. For some people, it is a day of celebration; the perfect excuse to show someone how much you love them, whether that be your best mates or your partner. For others, it’s a bit of a crap day; a day that pressures them into buying stuff or that makes them feel a bit lonely. We cannot ignore the fact that there is a generally a great divide.
Even if you’re not one of the 49% of Brits who celebrate Valentine’s Day, you probably know the basic facts. It happens on 14th February, it celebrates love, it is named after a saint, it involves sending cards to people you care about and has something to do with cupid…right?
What really fascinates me is that, after all these years, Valentine’s Day still continues to be one of our busiest nights of the year and that is with 48% of us preferring to celebrate Valentine’s Day at home this year.
From my experience, very few people sit on the fence with this particular day. You’re either for it, or against it – or perhaps you feel obligated to partake for the sake of a partner.
Whatever the reason, it is incredibly hard to avoid it, so here are a couple of fun facts for you this Valentine’s Day:
1. A jaw-dropping 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are given each year. This number makes Valentine’s Day the second most popular card-giving day, right behind Christmas.
2. There was more than one Saint Valentine. Who was the holidays patron saint? Most sources point to one of two men of the same name: a third century Roman priest who defied – and was martyred under the regime of Claudius II Gothicus, or another priest from the same period who hailed from a town about sixty miles away in what is now Terni, Italy (he was also martyred).
3. Cupid was a Greek God, able to make mortals fall in love with his magical arrows.
If you are coming to one of our sites this coming Saturday, then we look forward to welcoming you. If you are, please let me know which one you are going to and why you have chosen to celebrate there (it is always extremely helpful for me to get this kind of feedback). If you choose not to celebrate Valentine’s Day, then I would love to hear from you also. What are your thoughts on February 14th? My emails are open!
And if reading this email has prompted you to make some last minute plans, we have limited availabilty at a couple of our sites. Enquire direct for more info.
Big Love
Mark