It is approaching Valentine’s Day in the Barnett house, and as is traditional, we have the “let’s not bother with this over-hyped commercialised nonsense” conversation. We agree not to spend money we don’t have on cards and fripperies.

To be fair, this conversation probably evolved from me never actually successfully getting round to doing anything romantic for Valentine’s Day, ever.

Well, we did go for a meal once, I think, but the restaurant was so packed we were practically touching elbows with couples on either side, all of whom seemed to be there out of a sense of duty. We might as well have invited a load of strangers to our house to squeeze on the sofa and enjoy a Findus lasagne in silence.

But then I got to worrying that when we have the “let’s not bother with Valentine’s Day” conversation, although I am taking it quite literally, I might be missing some kind of subtext and that the conversation really means: “I know you’re not going to bother with Valentine’s Day, but it would be nice if you’d actually make a tiny effort once in a while.”

So, in the spirit of making a tiny effort, I decided that this year I would bake a cake. This seemed like a good compromise between doing nothing and spending money, although admittedly it is closer to the nothing than the spending. And it brought with it certain logistical problems.

For example, the only other time I made a cake was after a holiday in France. I had enjoyed something called a Tarte Tropezienne so much that I decided I would replicate it at home. It was the size of a hub-cap and weighed about two stone. This time I would go for something a little less ambitious, so downloaded a Mary Berry recipe for chocolate sponge cake.

The other problem was when to make it. If it was going to be a surprise, I couldn’t make it while my wife was in the house. That meant it would have to be made on Valentine’s Day morning, between my wife leaving for work and me taking the kids to school.

As soon as the door slammed shut yesterday, my daughter and I leapt into action, throwing eggs, flour and chocolate in a bowl, whizzing it with the hand mixer, wiping cake mixture off all the surfaces, and slamming it in the oven.

The timer went off just as I had to leave with the children. When I returned, this gave me about 20 minutes to finish the cake. However, the chocolate icing was refusing to set. I slammed it in the freezer for a bit and tried to clean up the bombsite that had resulted from Operation Cake.

As I should have been leaving for work, the icing had still not thickened sufficiently, so I just slammed it on anyway. It was, dear readers, a right mess. And as I write this, my wife is yet to see it – and more importantly, the mess in the kitchen.

Still, it’s the thought that counts...