From London With Love

Because there's only so much sugar-coated love we can give.

As the halfway mark of this inevitably depressing month approaches (because let’s face it,  it’s been a mere thirty-something days since the festive period and we’re all left staring into our empty Quality Street tins crying ‘Where the hell did all the fun go?’) we’re faced with the prospect of another excuse to hover in the Hallmark aisle. Yes my friend, it’s here. It’s the one you’ve been waiting for…in all it’s pink-and-fluffy-sugar-coated-gift-wrapped-glory. Dare I say it? Cupid has landed.  

At this point, you’re picturing a sour faced forty-something (single, besides her cats) typing this on the Estranged Express en route to Spinster City. Well, as much as I would love to play to the part, you will no doubt be flabbergasted to know that I am in fact in a happy relationship of several years (fingers crossed I haven’t just fecked that one right up). I am also under forty. Hoorah.

Until recently, I have never had a bone to pick with Saint Valentine himself. I was happy to fly on the wings of love and hug my heart shaped pillow. But (because you’ve been waiting for the but), doesn’t it all seem to be getting a little…Repetitive? Ho-hum? In my mind, there are only so many times we can walk into Thorntons and solve the problem with personalised chocolate, so many La Senza don’t-mind-if-I-do type occasions and so many dozens of red roses. And I hope I speak for the coupled when I say, we are reaching our limit. 

Who made up this lark anyway? There is no Saint Valentine, or Cupid as it happens (but I don’t need to tell you that, unless you’re still clinging onto Santa and wishing on the Easter Bunny- in which case, I am most sorry).  You see, I thought said boyfriend and I were on cloud nine and tickled pink. And the truth is, we are! But this year, the prospect of V Day only seemed to draw attention to the sober fact that we no longer feel that fresh thirst for one another, we are no longer greeted with the jelly-legged-butterflies-in-stomach-effect upon meeting.

Don’t get me wrong, the spark is certainly still there – but the light that started it has long gone. No doubt recycling it’s chemical properties to bring about brand spanking new couples. 

So perhaps we should leave the day of love to the newbies? And maybe the spare tables and no longer fully-booked restaurants that would inevitably ensue would give them an excuse to depart from their love nests.  And the rest of us? We could breathe a sigh of relief and stop making those desperate attempts to recreate that first time feeling in order to prove wrong our irrational thoughts that being settled is just downright sad. Because it isn’t.  It’s actually bloody lovely – which is why I should probably scoot and hit Clinton’s before my other half reads this, chucks me and leaves me stricken and single on Valentines. Now that’d be another blog all together…