I get a bit hand wafty and “poo poo” at the mere mention of Valentine’s Day, and it’s nothing to do with being single (honest). I’ve always found it a tad embarrassing, all that fuss over red roses, boxes of heart-shaped chocolates and huge red balloons emblazoned with “Be Mine”.

Just days into January, my local supermarket swapped Christmas selection boxes for obscenely oversized red love hearts and tacky cards, and it never fails to irk me when Valentine’s Day paraphernalia is replaced by Easter cards and an array of sugary eggs shortly after.

Despite all this unbearable retail drama (and I say this through gritted teeth), deep down, I wish I didn’t care about padded love hearts and huge red balloons as much as I do. But I do.

I do care whether I’m the recipient of a card or, even better, flowers each Valentine’s Day. Enough to bring on literal heart palpitations. Why this ultimate Hallmark Holiday should get so under my skin, I’ll never know. Maybe I’m just an old romantic fool or perhaps it stems from Valentine’s Day at primary school when aged around 10, we’d make cards to pop into the school post box located just off the dinner hall. The school “postie’” would deliver the cards to each classroom and our teacher would squeal (for full effect please read in a Scottish accent) “Ooooh, the Valentine’s post is here, children!”

In the woke times we’re in, my children will never experience such a thing as the Valentine’s Day post, which I’m obviously happy about – being left out is horrible. As for being the one who receives the most cards, well, what an incredible feeling it is to win at popularity. Yes, that was me. Nothing to do with charm or good looks (I was the goofiest girl, all gappy teeth and a mouse-hued bowl cut), it was more to do with being mates with all the boys, and so they wrote cards for me because I was their friend and they were 10 and the whole thing was just a bit weird. Valentine’s Day has been a downhill experience ever since.

I’m single and yet, come the morning of February 14, I’m convinced I’ll be the recipient of an epic gift. I know, my sparkly glass slippers are feeling awfully tight today, groomsmen. Not this year, or last, or the one before that, but definitely when happily married, while outwardly presenting as a Valentine’s Day refusenik, inwardly I’d try to hold my nerve to see if anything would appear at the breakfast table.

And one year it did. A huge, neatly wrapped box placed on the dining table, on top of which lay a single red rose. I squealed like my primary school teacher, fingers running across the top and down the sides. What could it be, and should I open it now? I picked it up and gave it a little shake. Its weight and size could mean only one thing: my husband had bought a new-season Prada bag. I skittered off to work, excited to return home that evening and tear open my gift in dramatic surprise, hoping it was the new Prada bucket bag in white I’d indiscreetly hinted at a few weeks before, but also talking myself round to the idea that it would be “OK” if it were the brown version instead…

There will be no Prada bags this Valentine’s Day and I’ll be avoiding pubs and restaurants as I’d rather not be surrounded by couples canoodling over candlelight. No dates on the horizon, either. Not that I’d go out on a first date on Valentine’s Day – can you imagine anything more awkward? I could always take the dog out for supper (am picturing the pair of us eating spaghetti by candlelight in the manner of Lady and the Tramp). Or I could send her a card, as suggested in an email received this week, the contents of which rendered me a giggling mess. Apparently, when British-based greetings card company, Dotty About Paper, noticed customers searching their website for “Valentine’s Day card for dogs”, they decided it was time to launch a range of cards for pets, or cards to give as if from a pet. Either way, it’s proof, as if it were needed, that we Brits are all barking mad.

Sending a betrothed a card is one thing, but dinner is quite another – and I don’t ever recall having been to a restaurant on February 14 (because obviously this princess prefers lavish gifts instead). This year, Valentine’s Day lands on a Monday meaning my children will be at home with me. Gosh, how pathetically grateful I am for small mercies.

Clearly obsessed, in the run-up to the big day I now grill anyone I come into contact with as to their plans come the 14. One happily married friend’s reply took me aback. “Oh, we always go out on a Monday evening. For 20 years or so, ever since we had the kids, he picks me up after work and we go to dinner, just us.” I stared at her; fully aware my mouth was agape. It takes more than flowers, a card, dinner and a once-a-year love declaration to keep a relationship thriving. Her weekly date night is surely a lesson in long-lasting love? Yes, it is, and it’s a lesson I shall forever remember, if I ever end up in a relationship again.

And on the subject of lessons, as my ex-boss, the fashion designer Paul Smith, always used to say, “never assume”. I took that to be a sort of mantra for his life and work and have applied it to my own since meeting him in 1996. So why I assumed the neatly wrapped box presented to me by my ex was a new-season white Prada bucket bag is beyond me. It was, in fact, a salad spinner. Apparently, I’d mentioned I’d quite like one and so the universe delivered. Universe, if you’re listening, I’d like a card from the dog as hand drawn by the 10-year-old. That will do nicely this year.

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