14th February

Tomorrow, the 14th Februrary, is the day that Norngirl and I try to forget. Sure we like a bit of romance and it's true we used to use this day as a day to portray our affections for one another in the form of presents and cards. I remember that we made some very sweet home made cards that would have been more epic and elaborate than most romantic comedies. It took us only a few years though to mutually begin to avoid the day altogether. With things like this hanging from the ceiling of Victoria Square Shopping Centre, it's still hard to avoid completely.

I'm not superstitious and I realise a lot of what I'm about to say comes down to chance and just an unfortunate sequence of events, the odds for which are long but as with any odds, always possible as long as the sequence can happen. The problem is, the alternative name for the unspeakable day seems to have a habit of being the day bad things happen.

It all began on our first Valentines day, that day Norngirl travelled over to England where I was at University. By 3pm on the 14th I was in an operating theatre and by all accounts, my appendix ruptured whilst I was on the operating table, spewing puss all over my innards. I spent the next few days wheeling a drip around a hospital ward as a precaution.

Sure, that could have happened any day but the next year, this day rolled around again, we went out for a meal and to the cinema. In the cinema, Norngirl received a call, her Granddad had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Since that day, any year we took part in such expressions bad things or bad news happened. We've tried to blank most of the smaller stuff from our memories. On years where we didn't celebrate, we blanked the day and did not speak of it's name, life continued as normal, no bad news received.

As I'm reading on other peoples blogs, not everyone is a big fan for their own reasons.

Norngirl obviously has a similar take to me on the issue and has recently blogged about siding with Team AntiCupid.

Angela over at Almost Incoherent Ramblings has expressed her dislike of this day too.

I think it would be fair to say that still somewhere on the fence, my favourite blogging Belfast Cabby over at Belfast Taxi has told us why he is likely to still participate.

There are also some people out there too who do seem to be looking forward to it, I don't want to pass on any bad luck so I'll not put up links of those not without an awareness of it's dark side, it's for their own safety!

Good look everyone, may your internal organs stay with you and may the day be quick and painless with no bad news. See you on the other side!