Just don’t forget the flowers... (From Worcester News)

Just don’t forget the flowers...

8:53am Tuesday 14th February 2012 in Fair Point

LOVE is in the air today.

Well, maybe for those of you still in the early days of dating. For the rest of us poor souls Valentine’s Day will go past with barely a whimper.

To be fair I will probably get a card from my husband but that is hardly exciting. (No offence love).

It’s not quite like the heady single days of wondering if mystery gifts might drop through your letterbox from handsome suitors.

Not that they ever did at my house, I have to say.

In the early days of our romance, my husband bought me 12 red roses. A few years later it had become six.

Pretty soon the single red rose will drop into my lap and I’m not sure where he’s going to go from there. Tulips maybe?

Actually, I don’t really mind because to me there is something rather odd about couples who put an arbitrary day like today in their calendars.

How can there be anything special about celebrating you and your partner’s unique love affair – on the same day as every other couple in the world?

Any couple that has ever attempted a romantic meal out on February 14 will vouch for that.

The last time we tried it we ended up having a row.

Perhaps it was because the restaurant was so busy we had to wait until 9pm for our table by which point we were starving.

Or maybe it was because staff were giving out roses to the ladies but ran out when we arrived so I was the only one in the place without a half-dead flower next to her placemat. That sort of thing can give a girl a complex.

Or possibly it was just because it’s hard to make yourself feel lovely on demand.

So we found we’d left our sparkling conversation at home and couldn’t drum up the effort to try and have a good time. (Come on, it was probably a Tuesday).

And anyway the Valentine’s fairies can’t stop you feeling irrationally irritated by your partner even if it is February 14.

Fortunately, love can survive sitting through a dodgy meal, having a blazing row over nothing much and vowing from then on to leave Valentine’s Day to the singletons.

As long as you can laugh about it afterwards.

And still buy the flowers.