When I was at primary school, my friend Mike stole some flowers from his friend’s garden to give to his mum on Valentine’s Day because he said he ‘knew she wouldn’t get anything’. It was one of the cutest things I’d ever heard.

Since then, I’ve thought about V-Day a lot: is it a heart-warming celebration of love? Or a sad reminder that the best some of us can hope for is half-dead garage flowers/a bent card/nothing?

MAKE A GESTURE

Back in 2012 on V-Day, some friends and I travelled all over London giving away 250 homemade cards to total strangers, from Deptford to Soho to Hampstead Heath (where we met a milkman who told us ‘no one has ever given me a V-Day card’). It was one of the best days we’d ever had.

This 14 February, if you know someone who might feel left out, if there’s someone you love but you never tell them so… send them a card. Why not even hand a flower to a passing stranger?

CELEBRATE

Let’s make V-Day a huge glittery party of all expressions of love: for lovers, friends, family, pets and all of humanity. We need it now more than ever.

Stay tuned for some Valentine’s Day surprises!

Follow writer and performer Bernadette at BernadetteRussell.com or @betterussell

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Read more Bernadette Russell: How to be kind at bedtime and how to be kind online