It's Valentine's Day on Saturday, but a survey has revealed you have to wait until your man is in his 50s to get him at his most romantic.

At this age the fellas are apparently more likely to surprise us with a simple gesture such as a walk in the summer rain or a sprinkle of rose petals in the bath, according to a survey of 2,000 men between 18-65.

The over 50s are also more likely to splash out on flowers, chocolates and perfume, while half of them questioned had recently treated their partner to a candlelit dinner (only one in four of the 20-25-year-olds had).

A spokesman for the hotel company which carried out the survey said by his middle years, a man will be wiser about what pleases a woman, 'having endured countless arguments with his partner, made hundreds of mistakes and blundered his way through the early years of his relationship'.

So how does my fella, who, like me, is definitely over 50, stand in all this?

Well, forget the rose petals in the bath which I'm not bothered about anyway, but Mr F has always been good on presents (never forgets) and scores well on the little gestures that mean a lot.

Even in our young days he bought me my flowers, and he still turns up with the odd bunch from time to time. Admittedly, when he brought the last blooms home, and I asked sweetly, "Oh, how lovely - are these for me?" He replied: "They're for both of us. I liked the colours."

I can't work out whether that was touching (we share things) or tactless (Am I not special then?).

Surprisingly perhaps, I thought his most romantic gesture in more than 30 years of marriage was when I had two major hospital trips in 2007, and also broke my foot between operations, which I suppose was really pushing it in the attention-seeking stakes.

It is so easy when you are lying back in a hospital bed, gleefully pressing your morphine pump while perusing the menus for the day, to forget how exhausting it is for those living out-side the sanitised bubble.

Yes, I had the cards and flowers, but most impressive was the way Mr F took on the unro-mantic jobs when I got home, from washing my hair and putting on my surgical stockings (to avoid blood clots) to reading out my exercises while I painfully struggled to perform them.

And all without laughing....