VALENTINE’S Day is coming up. Are you one of the miserable ones who says: ‘I’m not buying into all the commercialism’.

If so, you’re a miserable git. Buy the card, have a meal together, take the time to just share a bit of romance, an evening of quality time even if it’s just a Maccy D and a boxset.

And if you fancy someone but they don’t know it, send them an anonymous card and make them feel good.

And if you’re by yourself, buy yourself a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates. If there was a bit more love in the world it would wash away all this hate.

And going out for a pub tea just might help all these businesses that are going to crash and burn because this government thinks it’s okay to cripple them.

Yes, Labour, don’t pursue the massive businesses for their tax, just hobble the working man who is trying to survive.

I feel so desperately sorry for anyone doing their best to keep a business afloat while watching it topple inch by inch into the sea. If ever we needed some love and positivity it’s in this political climate.

I spent last week in a house in Somerset, in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of writer pals.

We did actually get some work done inbetween wines and we also talked a lot. We go back a long time and are all different ages, different backgrounds, different opinions but we all get on and we are allowed to have our own views on things (civilised society you see – that sort of thing happens in it).

We all have different wisdoms to share about the job and about life. Three of them have come through cancer, one of them had it at the same time as her daughter.

And that friend is connected to rock royalty. I love her stories, because who she hasn’t had in her kitchen at a house party isn’t worth talking about – and I mean proper heavyweights.

After her experiences these past couple of years, her philosophy is very much: drink the wine, eat the cake, buy the bag, sh*g the guitarist. There are worse life guides to go by.

As I was driving home, I took a call from the son of a friend of mine.

To tell me his mum had died, a woman not even sixty. A woman I went to infant school with. A woman who was still reeling from losing her own mum.

Her parents were friends with my parents, she was my childminder when my kids were younger, my mum and her worked together. I had to pull into a service station and I sat in a corner with a coffee and I sobbed for the loss of this loving, kind, gentle lady – a friend I was always delighted to bump into.

Younger than me, everything to look forward to, out of the blue and I am reeling from it. My sons were full of wonderful memories of the sunflowers she grew with them and were shocked to the core.

There are no words of comfort to say to this dear family who are smashed. If only there were.

Because I am still not over the fact I will never see my own mother again and though grief helps to grow a skin over the worst of the pain eventually to allow us to try and survive it, the wound is always there and never quite closes.

But yes, indeed, drink the wine, eat the cake, buy the bag and sh*g the guitarist while we have the chance.