Make the most of this free extra day. Thanks to the 29th of February the calendar stays in synch - without it your birthday would end up falling on a day that wasn’t your birthday...

It’s also the only day of the year that women are permitted to make marriage proposals, apparently. It is said that in a 1288 law passed by Queen Margaret of Scotland (then age five and living in Norway), fines were levied if a woman’s leap day proposal was refused by the man. These ranged from a kiss to £1 to a silk gown, in order to soften the blow for the rejected woman.

Hmm.

And now for today’s quote...

“I felt as though I owned the whole world. And little wonder, because at no time are we ever in such complete possession of our journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy wih preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it. This is what makes travel so utterly fruitless”

(from Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima)