Go West?

My name is Kelly and I have an addiction.

I am signed up for every travel company bulletin in Christendom. My job as a travel journalist partly accounts for this, but in reality, I am just a wanderlust hungry travel junkie who was looking for any opportunity to coerce my then-boyfriend into another holiday.

I couldn't resist the prospect of £150 flights to NYC. Opodo wouldn't let me pass up such an offer. Credit card in hand, I thought I had best call him to do a little sweet talking. We'd go for Valentine's Day. It'd be so romantic. It would get us out of that post-Christmas slump that everyone goes through. We could afford it (a partial lie!) and it'd be awesome. So we booked it.

Two Continental Airlines return flights to NYC, 7 nights in the cheapest hotel in the center of Manhattan... all in reasonable budget. And we had a whole four months to look forward to it. Now I'm of the Carrie Bradshaw generation... I sat a chubby geeky girl with an aptitude for words on the edge of my bed in the 90s, absorbing the glamourous life of a Manhattan icon who worked two hours a week in her underwear and wore £400 shoes to brunch every day. Why else become a journalist? Ok, so I know it's a lie now... I am working 40+ hours a week in a cold office wearing £6 Primark pumps.

Add to the Carrie Bradshaw glamour a big fat dose of Breakfast at Tiffanys. And the fact that I'd seen numerous rom-coms of dubious quality churned out by Hollywood that show blushing young affianced couples handing out Tiffany rings to rapturous applause. I was heading there for my little green box of dreams.

But then we broke up. Well, he broke up with me. Not completely out of the blue but unexpected, especially at the time. I have spent a month wallowing and dithering, chain smoking and drinking wine like it was water, crying and yelling, starving and gorging, burning stuff (not his in the style of Waiting to Exhale) and sobbing to strangers on the train about my heartache. Possibly making him glad that we have guinea pigs rather than a rabbit and a limited selection of saucepans...

It's not been easy on either of us.

The subject of New York has remained a spurious one. Do we go? Will we be able to enjoy it? What do we do? Can you have a romantic carriage ride through Central Park with a man who doesn't love you anymore? More importantly, is he obliged to pick me up when I go plummeting across the ice as I attempt to skate? What the hell do we do for Valentines Day?

Well kids, I'm about to find out. Tonight, we pack.