Remember the thrill of getting an unsigned card with a little verse in and hoping someone particular had sent it? Now Valentine's Day has become another commercial splurge, a sickly-sweet free-for-all with everyone cashing in.

Love, like the spectrum of a rainbow, comes in many different hues. And so the pressure is on so many to show how much they care. It's become a game of one-upmanship, reducing true love to all that's tawdry – showing off in the office with a two-foot-high card and a bouquet of red roses. Surprise, surprise.

Well, it's no surprise to me. And while this day for lovers is now made more of than ever before, the very sentiment of the day is being cheapened.

Infatuation will cost you £500. That's the name of a bunch of 100 red roses from Interflora. I'd rather have a £1.79 bunch from Aldi and know that he meant it.

Man's greed will see a single red rose, gift-wrapped this week for £3.50, jump to 20 quid on Valentine's Day. Meals out will be a rip-off, as they pack in as many couples as possible. Where's the romance in that?

As one pal told me, he's stopping in with his missus this Valentine's after last year's fiasco: "It was like a cattle market. And we got sat next to a divorced couple who were fighting and arguing all night.

"It was lovely food but there was nothing romantic about it. It was murder, them fighting over the custody of the bairns, so we're stopping in from now on and I'm cooking."

And it's not just businesses that are greedy. It's the lasses as well. The same mate told me how last year his brother gave his girlfriend a £150 diamond chip necklace and earring set.

And her response was: "Is that all I'm getting?" The end of another beautiful friendship! And she kept her pressie.

All this fake, showy sloppiness has no place alongside the genuine article.

Love, that most precious gift, if you have found it, is for celebrating every day – not just on one day.

One friend told me how she always slipped a love line or two in her husband's box of sandwiches. Not between the lettuce and tomato mind. That would be a new take on eating your words!

And if you are looking for some love lines of your own, how about these from two charming books from Celia Haddon – One Hundred Ways To Say I Love You and One Hundred Kisses.

There are quotes from the world's most famous and historical lovers, farewells, apologies, seductive suggestions and, of course, downright declarations of love.

I sleep with thee and wake with thee,
And yet thou art not there;
I fill my arms with thoughts of thee -
And press the common air.
Thy eyes are gazing upon mine
When thou art out of sight,
My lips are always touching thine
At morning, noon and night."
John Clare, 1793 -1864

And on kisses:

"It has been said by them of old time, and our fathers have told us, that the kiss of first love, the first kiss of the first woman we love, is beyond all kisses sweet; and true it is. But true is it also that no less sweet is the first kiss of the last woman we love."
Richard Le Gallienne, writer, 1866-1947