Toni Hargis

At the risk of sounding bah-humbug and party pooper-ish, it's quite liberating being in the UK on Valentine's Day. In my former life as a mother to kids in an American school, I obviously really didn't have enough to do when I look back on the Valentine's Day things I have made. (It might also have been something to do with getting the kids in bed by 7.30pm and having the whole evening to craft to my heart's content.)When kids are little, they're often asked to take cards or little gifts into school for their classmates. (Note - I did rope the kids in once they got old enough.)Instead of using fresh roses (like that was ever a consideration), we ripped up small pieces of pink and red tissue paper, crunched them up and stuck them onto a cardboard heart (painted red, of course).

Now that I'm back in the UK, I'm trying to learn all there is to know about British politics. Watching anything that covers more than Theresa, Boris, Nicola and Jacob has me as much at sea as Hello magazine, where I only know people over 70. I'm hearing that he's the bookies' favourite to win the Tory leadership, despite his relative lack of ministerial experience. So I wrote a semi-serious piece at my Huffington Post blog.

In the US, most of the news channels (even the BBC) were very US-focused, which inevitably meant constant updates about the latest piece of Trump idiocy or crassness. However, since I'm still also an American citizen, and have property in the US (as well as two adult children), I feel I should still keep on top of the US circus. Resolving to let go of the daily Trump s**t show (excuse French) is almost impossible if you want to keep yourself apprised of US news. I'm really trying, not to let Trump take up too much of my time and energy.

Obviously, although tempting, one doesn’t feed the trolls, but it’s interesting to engage with antagonists occasionally, if only to kill time while the kettle boils. I’m not sure if these Tweeters are all working from the same manual, but there are definitely some tired old responses being lobbed about and, b****r me, if they all don’t employ the same game plan too. so I’m closing my eyes, sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting “la la la la la”. When faced with yet more incontrovertible evidence of said fact, he, she or bot moves on to: – which really means “because I haven’t a clue and can’t possibly add facts or sources to my comments, I’ll just pretend I know more than you.