Valentine's Day

Well, I was fighting my way through the red roses on the way out to take the children swimming, as you can imagine. Chocolates, goes without saying. And then the card, my goodness what a card. Nothing compared to the diamond cluster. With matching necklace, of course. The romantic meal, candlelit, for two, obviously. And such a torrent of passionate declarations, I had to take cover.

I should be so lucky.

Dig's pushed off to Central Asia to lecture people about commas. So the closest I get to a sweet nothing is a Skype call that makes Dig's voice sound like a rubber band. No flowers, no card. No diamond cluster. Nothing. And when it comes to a romantic meal I nipped out to the chippy for the children.

Tiger's got this idea that when daddy's away and we're running back from swimming, starving, having missed lunch, that we stop at our local chippy. I think we've done this twice, because we're usually back after it's shut. But today we were back early, and Tiger wasn't going to give up on this demand. Cue big argument in the back of the car because Squirrel says she doesn't like chips and wants pasta. Shark starts chanting 'CHIPS! CHIPS!' at the top of her voice as a way of presenting her point of view in the argument. So we reach a compromise. I'll cook pasta and fetch chips.

What a Valentine's Day. An outing to the swimming pool. And a trip to the chippy. It's days like this that I need the tin containing the cooking chocolate that I've got stashed away in the office cupboard.

Happy Valentine's Day.