Valentine’s Day at North Harbour!

February 11, 2017

Welcome to this week’s North Harbour Blog. This week we’re celebrating all things love in honour of Valentine’s Day – we’ve even got some heart shaped chocolates on offer in the sales office!

As I know many of our readers enjoy a good historical story I’ll begin with the origins of Valentine’s Day. The history is obscure, and further clouded by various legends but its roots are in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, a fertility celebration commemorated annually on February 15. Pope Gelasius I changed this pagan festival into a Christian feast day circa 496AD, declaring February 14 to be St. Valentine’s Day.

Which St. Valentine this early Pope intended to honour remains a mystery as according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, there were at least three early Christian saints by that name. One was a priest in Rome, another a bishop in Terni, and of a third St. Valentine almost nothing is known except that he met his end in Africa. Rather incredibly, all three Valentines were said to have been martyred on February 14th.

Most scholars believe that the St. Valentine of the holiday was a priest who attracted the disfavour of Roman emperor Claudius II around 270AD. According to one legend, Claudius II had prohibited marriage for young men, claiming that bachelors made better soldiers. Valentine continued to secretly perform marriage ceremonies but was eventually apprehended by the Romans and put to death. Another legend has it that Valentine, imprisoned by Claudius, fell in love with the daughter of his jailer. Before he was executed, he allegedly sent her a letter signed “from your Valentine.” Another and probably the most plausible story surrounding St. Valentine is that he was martyred for refusing to renounce his religion.

It was not until the 14th century that this Christian feast day became definitively associated with love. According to UCLA medieval scholar Henry Ansgar Kelly, author of Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine, it was Chaucer who first linked St. Valentine’s Day with romance.

In 1381, Chaucer composed a poem in honour of the engagement between England’s Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. As was the poetic tradition, Chaucer associated the occasion with a feast day. In “The Parliament of Fowls”, the royal engagement, the mating season of birds, and St. Valentine’s Day are linked:

“For this was on St. Valentine’s Day,  When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate.”

Over the centuries, the holiday evolved, and by the 18th century, gift-giving and exchanging handmade cards on Valentine’s Day had become common in England. Hand-made valentine cards made of lace, ribbons, and featuring cupids and hearts eventually spread to the American colonies. The tradition of Valentine’s cards did not become widespread in the United States, however, until the 1850s, when Esther A. Howland, a Mount Holyoke graduate and native of Worcester, Mass., began mass-producing them. Today, of course, the holiday has become a booming commercial success but is no longer a Christian festival as it was removed from the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar in 1969. According to the Greeting Card Association, 25% of all cards sent each year are valentines.

And what could be more romantic than getting married?! (Don’t answer that, cynics). Adding to the growing list of services you can find at North Harbour we are very fortunate to have among our growing community a wedding photographer and a professional cake maker.

Stewart and Emma Pullen are the proprietors of SEP Photography with Emma also running a cake business, Pure Indulgence Cakes, so between them they can take care of two extremely important parts of anyone’s big day!

We caught up with Stewart to find out more about their businesses and what brought them to North Harbour as opposed to other property developments in Brisbane.

“We chose North Harbour for a lot of reasons. Firstly, the first time we drove into the development we felt a real sense of community. The whole estate looked great, from the park and the display village everything seemed very well planned out. Speaking with Aidan in the sales office was also a major reason, he had a lot of helpful advice and went above and beyond to help us purchase our first block of land.

We also attended a few events at North Harbour where there were jumping castles and BBQ’s in the park and even the movie night, we met a few people and everyone seemed to be very proud to be a part of North Harbour.

We were inspired and decided to make North Harbour our home. From the moment we signed the papers there has been no looking back and we know we made the right decision.

We have chosen Stylemaster to build our home, we had never seen one of their homes until we visited North Harbour and we were blown away. We were impressed with the finishes and the designs and to top it off Chris in the sales office was an absolute pleasure to deal with. We cannot wait to see our dream home all finished.

We are due to move in the middle of 2017 and cannot wait. We already attend a lot of the events held and make use of the park. Every time we are at North Harbour we don’t want to leave and just want to be in our new home already!

Our photography company is called SEP Photography, we started out approximately eight years ago as just a hobby to take photos of the kids and it just took off from there.

We now employ two staff members and travel all across Australia and overseas photographing weddings. We also spend a lot of our time capturing family’s and life’s special moments like pregnancy.

Photography is something we are so passionate about, especially wedding photography. To be a part of something as special as someone’s wedding and to be trusted to capture those memories is a huge honour.

Emma’s business is called Pure Indulgence Cakes. She has been doing cakes for approximately four years within the family business but has recently expanded into her own business. She specializes in all cakes from cakes for corporate meetings to birthdays and weddings. Samples of her work can be found on her Facebook page.

We will operate our businesses at North Harbour which is another reason why we chose North harbour, high-speed internet and ease of access to the highway was a must for us.

We would also invite people to contact us about any of their photographic or cake needs. We would happily provide North Harbour residents with special deals.

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and also at www.sep-photography.com.”

Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day and if you’re looking for some romance ideas check out what’s on in the Moreton Bay Region. Keep an eye on Facebook for details of our upcoming events, the next one is B105FM and DannyBoys food truck on Saturday February 25^th.

Part of our commitment to being one of the best property developments in Brisbane is holding these regular community events. To ensure you don’t miss out visit www.northharbour.com.au, sign up for our email and SMS updates and find us on Facebook. These events are open to everyone, not just our residents, and are free of charge. We look forward to seeing you there!

North Harbour is a property development on the northside of Brisbane. Our Sales Office and Display Village (with 35 display homes) is open seven days a week, 10am-5pm. For more information regarding available land for sale or to make an appointment call Aidan on 5433 1111 or email .