If you're cooking for love, don't spare the hearts (and flowers)

Valentine's Day has become an over-the-top consumer-fest created by marketing men to promote a buying frenzy. 

However, I find myself (14 years after meeting Mr F) in somewhat of a quandary. Back in the day, Mr F and I would heartily ridicule the idea of one day a year when you're forced to turn on the romance: "Why would we sit in a restaurant like all those other suckers?" we'd smugly sneer. "You should be romantic all the time!"

Fast forward a few years as two became three, and a fourth fresser joined the fun, and before we knew it, we were too tired to run baths and light candles. The bunches of flowers faded, date night disappeared, and before you could say 'romance is dead', it was six feet under. We've become the stereotype. Our two smaller people had sucked romance clean out of our lives. 

We still cannot join those crowds chewing their way through the set menu tonight 14th February — that remains a step too far — but Mr F will be cooking for me. A Mr Fresser-cooked meal is as rare as a Megan Markle bad hair day, but he's a jolly good cook, so I'm looking forward to my supper, and to sitting together at our table and remembering where it all began.