I do worry about Mrs McNulty sometimes. Dylan finds her scary but I think she’s harmless enough. I suppose I shall have to go. The last time I refused her invitation, I returned home from work the next day to find the grass on my back lawn flattened in the shape of a giant phallus; Mrs McNulty claimed it was a crop circle signifying fertility, most likely caused by some kind of extra-terrestrial craft, but the compressed grass bore all the hallmarks of the tread from her sit-on lawn mower.

Wednesday February 14th

The Flowers of the Garage Forecourt

Budding lovers beware

of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt;

they are not for courting.

Love will not blossom

with those blundering bouquets of cellophaned sadness:

the slip-road roses and petrol-pump peonies.

The crushed-dream chrysanthemums.

All those dahlias of desperation!

The I-forgot-you forget-me-nots.

Remember this: would-be patrons

of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt:

romance wilts with lack of forethought.

Sophie has posted up a picture on Facebook of a huge bunch of flowers that arrived for her at work today, sent by Stuart. It contains all sorts of flowers: yellow ones, red ones, white ones, even some of the purple ones. It must have cost a fortune for all those different colours.

I fought off the gloom by hosting a romantic, candlelit supper with The Guardian Bumper Christmas Cryptic Crossword. At 7 across, I tentatively pencilled in CURMUDGEON while trying to stop myself from wondering how Liz was spending her Valentine’s Day.

Not that it is any of my business, of course. I am quite content to leave love and all that stuff to others who possess more expertise in the area; it is a splendid thing indeed that those people have their own day to commemorate such things. But if you’re going to celebrate love, then why stop there? Where are the days dedicated to other just-as-pure emotional states – such as envy and loneliness, panic and anguish? Lovers have it made already, without being encouraged to shake their expensive, multi-coloured bouquets in the faces of the rest of us.

Thursday February 15th

Advice for Removing Keyboard Tearstains

If you happen to notice

your keyboard is dirty,

use a water spray can

and give it a SQWERTY.

Compassionately wiping the teardrop smears from my keyboard, Tomas asked me what the matter was. I simply shrugged and held up my hands in a despairing, expansive gesture, one which took in my Leamington PowerPoint, my shabby officle, the ridiculousness of the corporate world and twenty-first-century life more broadly. Tomas told me I was worrying unduly about my presentation:

‘After all,’ he said, ‘implicit in language is its own limitation. All forms of communication are intrinsically flawed and the worlds that each of us perceive and make for ourselves will forever be different because of this.’