EVER since Mary Brotherton believed the Valentine card had been sent by my handsome school chum, Alan Knowles, and not by me, February 14 has had its darker side.

This included my first – and worst – rugby injury when I recklessly tackled a chap who could have been Wren’s model for the Radcliffe Camera, and more recently the date on which my much-missed mother headed for the Land of the Hereafter.

Just to emphasise the jinx, I got a call on Tuesday morning to say my favourite cousin was in hospital following an emergency operation.

I hadn’t expected a Valentine card – but it would have been nice had one arrived. A grandson’s explanation that such cards were no longer written in Latin exclusively for my age group, was rather unkind.

But soldier on, I thought. There was a city out there filled with of happy, smiling couples, holding hands and celebrating their love. (What a pity so many preferred to be holding mobile phones.)

* SPIRITS rose – if you will excuse the pun - in Turl Street when I saw the premises of Ducker and Son, those shoemakers extraordinaire who are retiring, is to be taken over by the Oxford Wine Company. Next door is the Whisky Shop. Imagine it: top-of-the-range wine and exquisite whisky, fewer than five paces apart!

As always there were many young people in The Missing Bean, the coffee house and café a few yards away. One couple near the window were snugly wedged on the same seat.

But there were no loving glances. Books and files held their attention. I suppose study must go on no matter what the date may be.

Frustration grew when I spotted in a nearby jewellers’ shop a small notice alongside a beautiful piece of jewellery intended for the neck of a loved one, inviting whoever this was to “Be My Valantine [sic].

Perhaps I’m being too picky.

* I MADE for home via the café in Banbury M&S and ordered a cuppa. How long I sat looking at nothing is impossible to say, but suddenly a smiling four-year-old I recognised as Amelia, came over and put a sheet of paper on the table. She had been busy colouring the pictures.

“That’s for you,” she said before returning to her young mother who revealed Amelia had thought I looked sad.

Who needed a Valentine’s Day card now? Not me.

* THOUGHT for the day. If we get one super council to cover Oxfordshire, will charges for similar public services be the same county wide?

* SECOND thought for the day. Will parking our cars in the city centre become as cheap as in West Oxfordshire?

We can but dream.