Don't you hate it when all your Valentine's cards get lost in the post?

Ah, Valentine's day. The day for receiving anonymous cards, sitting alone listening to Celine Dion, receiving large bunches of roses, crying over pictures of Colin Firth, receiving seasonal boxes of Thornton's chocolates, going out and impulse buying 16 cats, having a quiet evening in with your loved one, admitting to yourself that the card signed '? xxx' is from your mother, setting fire to bunches of flowers, eating the box of Thornton's which was indeed 'seasonal' but left over from Christmas, mentally mutilating the 'happy' couples in magazines, then sitting back in the wedding dress you've never removed and embracing spinsterhood with open arms. Or maybe it's just my life that's worthy of a Carol Ann Duffy poem?... I'm joking of course, my life isn't really like that - for a start I've never been given roses.
Shocking as this may be, I'm spending my Valentine's evening alone in bed with my cat and a glass of Prosecco. Although depressingly, even my cat has had more action than I have today...unfortunately her's came in the form of a rectal thermometer at the vet...but that's another story. I'm keeping her company :)

"Come and get it, boys" - Charles Dickens

I was going to present you lucky people with a brief history of Valentine's day, but I got bored researching it after five minutes. Essentially there were a couple of Christian men whom it is believed this gut-wrenching, over commercialised, 'Clinton Card' flavoured rose-scented-vomit inducing day is dedicated to, they were all killed and lived unhappily ever after. Pre-dating the Christian celebration is the Pagan festival of 'Lupercalia' which was originally celebrated on the 13th, 14th and 15th February. It frankly sounds a whole lot more...interesting, involving young gents getting stark-bollock naked and whipping young women's arses with hand-crafted animal skin whips to 'improve their fertility'. Each to their own, as they say. One can only hope the torture inflicted on the eponymous Christians who helped bring us this vile day involved animal-skin whips and Celine Dion playing on a loop. 
I thought I might try and find some positive things that came out of Valentine's Day, so I looked up notable people's birthdays - nothing of interest. Perhaps the interesting birthdays came 9 months later in November...


Reading back over this blog post, I've realised how psychotic and bitter I sound. I'm not, I promise you, in fact, I'm genuinely pleased and whole-heartedly supportive of all you happy, loved-up, romantic, smug, 'ooh look at my lovely new heart pendant', couples. Genuinely I am. Now, where's my pickaxe? I have some wedding cakes to deface...