Valentine Short - The Other Half of Jamie Tremain

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Love is not always coloured red.

By Pamela Blance


The cold creeps into my bones and I start to shiver. The usual dreich February weather has me dreaming of sandy beaches and palm trees. Not that I’ve ever seen a palm tree or had a vacation in the sun but I can imagine. Everything, after all the Christmas lights are gone, is grey or white. The snow is falling as I write this and even the evergreens look, well grey.

I like grey and white. I wear grey clothes and my hair is grey­—well it’s actually white. I get told repeatedly to wear some colour.

“Try a darker lipstick, or, you would really suit Fuchsia” to,” you need some colour.” So say the fashion sages who are my friends.

And in February for the first two weeks we are bombarded with…colour. Red to be exact. Red hearts drip over television and newspaper advertisements. Florist windows display only long stemmed red roses. Boxes of chocolates are tied with red bows. I’m knitting a red sweater just to cheer me up.

Red , the colour of love. Valentine ’s Day. A day for romance and love.

We met when very young and married soon after. Good years and bad years but we always come back together. I’ve re-read the handwritten love letter he wrote the night before we married. You can’t fake that. Some years we forgot to celebrate our love when life and all its vagaries got in the way.

The years we did celebrate we’ve been to the honeymoon capital of the world, Niagara Falls, gone out for dinner, had dinner in, stayed up all night with a sick child and shared many a box of chocolate or bottle of wine.

I wonder how we’re celebrating this Valentine ’s Day? We’re not speaking this week. Had a roof leak and sodden carpets and tempers came to the surface as we don’t cope well with the unexpected.

I am stashed away in the guest bedroom to get away from the blowing fans drying out the carpets. It’s six o’clock. Not a peep from my beloved. No chocolates or roses or the promise of a meal out over candles.

There’s a knock on the door. Said beloved moved over and extended to me his closed fist and dropped a heart shaped piece of amber into my hand. We made up.

Now amber is brown and gold and I love it. I think I should go back to my brown hair colour. Who needs red!



Pamela Blance is one half of Jamie Tremain (the one on the left). Writing is her passion, one that she had to put off for family and job. Now she is writing with her friend Liz Lindsay. According to Pam, "We are even told we look alike. But there the similarity ends. Liz is a techi and an analytical thinker... I am none of these things." Pam is the more flamboyant one.
Find out more about Liz and Pam on their blog: Jamie Tremain - Remember the Name.