We all know that Valentine’s Day is a miserable time of year. If you’ve spent February 14th alone, you already know what I’m talking about. If you have a long term partner, then you know it is nigh on impossible to avoid this supposed celebration of love turning out to be a huge anti-climax, unless you are willing to shell out a small fortune each year.

Perhaps the worst Valentine’s Day experiences are those that involve hastily-arranged dates and disastrous valentines gifts. And believe me, I should know.

My Valentine’s nightmare featured a rather over-eager young buck named Jan. I found him through a dating website and quite liked the sound of a “Norwegian gent with a passion for fine food and the great outdoors”. After all, I quite liked A-Ha back in the day and I hadn’t heard any horror stories about Norwegians. Not since Viking times, anyway.

Jan suggested a picnic in the local park for our Valentine’s date, which roused my suspicions that he was not only a bit forward, but also insane. A picnic? Outside? In February? But he assured me it would all be fine, promising to bring a warming flask of Irish coffee and some delicacies from his homeland, so, keen as I was to discover a cultured, well-travelled man, I agreed.

What I didn’t anticipate was that Jan would spend the entire morning before our afternoon rendez-vous in the florists.

When I arrived at our meeting place in the park, I couldn’t see Jan. Not that he had stood me up or kept me waiting. No, the reason I couldn’t see Jan was because he was hidden behind the largest bouquet of valentines day flowers that I have ever seen in my life. There must have been over two hundred flowers of all descriptions in this monstrosity. I almost expected local florists to appear on the horizon demanding he replenished some of their stocks, but I awkwardly accepted his gesture and we got on with the picnic.

But the valentines day gifts did not stop with the flowers. So keen was Jan to give me a good impression of his beloved homeland that the first item out of the enormous picnic hamper was a huge, stuffed, cuddly elk.

After almost taking my eye out with one of its antlers, Jan announced that he had brought with him a warming dish to kick off our picnic. He then proceeded to take out a camping stove and a saucepan, in which he warmed up our main course – elk stew!

The date seemed to last for days but, when it did finally come to an end, I bade Jan a hasty farewell and walked home as quickly as I could, depositing the valentines day flowers and bizarre cuddly toy in the waste disposal of a local factory. I tried to throw the memory of a disastrous Valentine’s Day in there with them, but it proved a little harder to shake off!