A perfect day for it

14st 6lb; 2.0 medicinal units of alcohol to promote sleep; 1,451; Viking.

For the last two years I’ve written supposedly humorous newspaper columns for Valentine’s Day, mentioning in passing that I shall be spending it alone. Each has produced some response, even though I didn’t provide anything as helpful as an e-mail address, so the ladies concerned had to go to all the trouble of Googling me to track me down. This year I did get the paper to print an address and – so far – absolutely nothing. Which just goes to show the wisdom of that old advice about playing a bit hard to get. And maybe not making it clear that you are absolutely desperate. Now with the added disincentive that I may well choose to write about the resulting disaster on this blog (though, to look on the positive side from the point of view of a shy female, there is virtually no evidence that anyone reads it).

It would be another perfect day for a long walk, being warm and sunny without the slightest breath of wind. But, instead, I decide to spend it out in the garden hacking back overgrown trees and shrubs, of which I seem to have an inordinate number given the modest dimensions of the plot on which my house stands. When I bought it, I worked in London all week and the last thing I wanted was to spend every summer weekend trying to keep a large garden in some sort of order. Now I’ve got much more time on my hands but no greater inclination to get them dirty and / or torn to ribbons. The dog is pretty cheesed off, too. No, give me a bracing walk in the hills or a bottle of something chilled and an amusing female companion any day. Any day at all. But preferably tomorrow, God, if you're listening.