Ah, the feast of Saint Valentine, that one day of the year where women everywhere, all over the world, celebrate their freedom and independence in overwrought consumerism.

It’s a day to really sit up and take stock. To make yourself a cocktail, have a lovely meal and be thankful for all those loser boyfriends you could have ended up with, and all those unhealthy relationships you managed to wangle yourself out of.

I like to wander down the aisles of my local card shops and look at all the cards with insistent messages of love,  such as ‘how many women does it take to change a light bulb?’ and then you open up the card and inside it reads ‘just one, it was easy, and because you keep lists, you remembered to buy the bulb when you went to the supermarket’.

Its beauty brings tears to my eyes, truly, as i think about how lucky i am to have me.

While there are certainly no lack of men in my life, and wonderful men at that, there is something so fortunate (and maybe egocentric – does that mean i’m becoming French?) about having only yourself to think about – only yourself to please and only yourself to make you happy. If you spend long enough with yourself, you will eventually even be able to laugh at all your own jokes, even if deep down you know that they are not so funny.

That’s love.

And if it gets cold at night? Well that’s why god invented booty calls.

And hot water bottles.