February 14th 2012, the least romantic Valentine's Day of all time.

I am not single and bitter. I'm not even single, and only a tiny bit bitter. I really hate Valentine's day, though. It just seems to me like a completely pointless exercise, if you're in a relationship you should be appreciating each other for the other 364 days of the year, not just February 14th. Not that I would expect flowers and cards every day - so I don't expect those on Valentine's day either. I just don't like the idea of being out for dinner in a room full of couples drinking champagne that they got free for booking the table, or spending the day doing "couple things". I'm not really a romantic at the best of times, and V-Day just seems to bring out the worst in me, so I just try to avoid it as much as possible. This year I think I did this better than I ever have before, albeit completely unintentionally.

On Monday, the day before V-Day, I went over to Manchester, where my boyfriend is at Uni. That night, me and some friends went to see Justice at Manchester Academy (who were very very good even if I was way too drunk to appreciate it properly). My friend Leah and I went to a cashpoint at some point during the night, and as I crossed the road to get to it, my ankle completely gave way under my foot, causing me to stumble across the road. (I wasn't wearing heels. I wasn't even that drunk...) but anyway it hurt a bit but it was mostly just hilarious and Leah and I just laughed about it for ages and then she found a bottle of rum in a bush and I think she drank it in the taxi. I went back to my boyfriend's flat where I was staying and went to sleep.

I am making this story far more boring by dragging it out, sorry. I find it hard to be concise.

Anyway, the next morning I woke up at about 6am with a splitting headache and the feeling that somebody had scrubbed my mouth out with sandpaper (I blame the Sailor Jerry*), so I got out of bed to get a drink and brush my teeth. I stood up and walked to the kitchen which is when I noticed the excruciating pain that was coming from my right foot, but desperate for hydration and a toothbrush I soldiered on. When I turned the kitchen light on, I discovered that half of my foot had turned a fetching shade of purplish blue, and cursing my drunken self, I went back to bed. Cut to 11am and I wake up again properly (lazy I know) and Joshua says good morning and then goes and gets me a glass of water (I have him well trained) (I'm joking) but anyway then he gives me a Valentine's card which I am secretly pleased with even though pretending to be all I-thought-we-weren't-doing-Valentine's and it transpires he's bought us tickets to see Green Day's American Idiot musical which I am very very excited about (thank you Josh if you're reading this!) and then I go, Josh look at my foot and it's all swollen and purple and gross. Then Josh's mum rang him and he mentioned my foot, and she said I should probably go to the hospital to get it checked, but being me I was all, "I'll be FINE" and was adamant that I did not need to go to the hospital because I was indeed fine. Then my mum rang me and we had pretty much the same conversation.

3 hours later and we're in the A&E department of Salford Royal Hospital and Josh is amusing himself by pushing the wheelchair that I'm sat in across the room so I go flying. I get x-rayed by a student doctor who looks about 14 years old but has one of the ugliest tattoos I've ever seeen, and then spend another few hours just waiting. I'm quite impatient and I was getting a bit wound up by the whole affair (I was FINE) so you can probably imagine how pissed off I was when the doctor told me that I had indeed broken my foot and I'd have to have a cast. I've never broken a bone before and being unfamiliar with the healing process, I imagined this would last about 2 weeks tops. So off we go to the plaster room (which was IMPOSSIBLE to find) and I'm there in a stupid hospital gown because I'd worn skinny jeans for some unknown reason, and had to take them off for the cast, and this nurse is going on about taking my nail varnish off and I really don't even care, I just want to be out of the hospital. After she'd put the cast on, as a sort of afterthought I asked when I could have it taken off. She said four to six weeks. I nearly died. Then a short, bald man gave me a quick lesson in walking with crutches, and we got a taxi back to the flat, me still in my hospital gown, looking like a prize cretin. Josh kept laughing at me at random intervals throughout the day and reminding me that it was a good job he insisted we went to A&E or I could've ended up being a "Timmy"** forever. He was right but I'm not very good at admitting that I was wrong so I didn't say much. Then we went back to the flat, and ate some leftover pizza. We were supposed to go out for dinner but that plan went out of the window when I became an invalid. Then my best friend, Beth, came over and we watched Shameless with Josh's annoying Australian flatmate, Dave. The four of us, Josh pissed off that I'm the world's crappiest Valentine's Day Celebrator, Beth pissed off because she's tired and hungover, me pissed off because I can't walk, and Dave not pissed off because he's too boring to get pissed off about anything. And we all just sat there, having the least romantic Valentine's day of our lives, and then went to sleep.

Rosie made this for me though:

* I was bought a bottle of Sailor Jerry from both my parents and from Josh for Christmas, I don't know which bottle it was, so I'm blaming all of them for my misfortune.
**exceptionally crude South Park reference, Josh's words, not mine...