Love is in the air...

Now people who know me might know this. Or they might not. But here seems like an apt, and rather public, place to reveal it: I am a hopeless old romantic fool. I believe in buying flowers, sending cards, writing poetry. I do all of these things. But I have to do them for myself. No tears please - I don’t require your pity! Because I have realised over the years that I have an awful lot of love to give, but if it happens that at one time or another there is no one to give it to, surely I am the perfect recipient? A bit of self-love goes a long way!

So as Valentine’s Day came around, I bought myself a little box of chocolates - the fancy ones - and I had them tucked up in my room, just waiting for the opportunity to open them. Valentine’s day itself this year was actually celebrated as ‘Galentine’s’. A new phenomenon that I am very much on board with, since it taps in to this concept already latent within me; singleton’s deserve a good Valentine’s day too! In fact perhaps we deserve even more!

So we trotted down to my friends house and watched ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. I am not sure how much attention we paid to the film, or how much it became an evening of insisting how pretty Anne Hathaway was. It was turned out to be a mild misjudgement, purely because the film centres around the fashion industry where the girls all go on starvation diets, which felt quite out of key with the evening: a glass of prosecco in one hand, a cookie in the other. Nevertheless I very much enjoyed myself. To be perfectly honest I enjoy any reason to spoil myself. That spoiling always involves spending money: either I buy myself flowers, or wine, or food, or clothes, or jewellery. Sometimes all of these things, although I do try my best to be restrained. But Valentine’s Day is not a day for holding back. So I hit up good old M&S and bought myself some fancy-schmancy pink fizz and some proper nice chocolates and gorged on gorgeous food, wine and company.

Aside from the focus on food and drink I have maintained thus far, I also partook of a little ‘romance’ myself, although this involved no actually declarations of love - I am far too British for those - but a little poetry. I do write quite a lot of poetry now. I used to be prolific, then some god-awful self-conscious notion got into my head and I stopped writing or reading my poetry. I would always use Cambridge as an excuse: I just simply don’t have time! Thankfully I have put aside that excuse and rekindled an ever-present love. So that was my little dip into romance, my fling with Valentine’s Day - penning a poem. May next year, whether it be Valentine’s or Galentine’s, be as wholesome, and may happiness and love come to all those around me.

God it’s getting soppy.