… and all the adverts for romantic escapes, couples spa days and restaurant deals. Also couples holding hands, especially old couples – both amazingly sweet and bitterly painful.
Not that we went in ‘big’ for Valentine’s Day; we maintained a mutual disdain for a commercially driven day when you’re supposed to REALLY prove you love someone in the guise of a Hallmark card and some cheesy gift.
Nevertheless, it was usually marked by my husband cooking a bit of an adventurous meal; something which took time and a horrendous amount of pots and pans. God I miss walking into that cooking apocalypse and saying; ‘did you have to use every item in the kitchen to make this’.
It’s not the day itself, it’s the expectation around it and the void of knowing that this was a day where you were ‘set’. Even if your plans were limited to sitting on the sofa doing nothing but drinking wine and bingeing a box-set; you were doing nothing much with someone. Your someone.
So although it wasn’t a ‘big deal’ then, it’s a big deal now. So piss of Valentine’s.
Youngish Widow 