Invest in love and reap its rewards
Brave face of dutiful queen My heart goes out to Caroline
LOVERS of The Crown have been in thrall to Her Majesty the Queen’s stoical resilience and unfailing devotion to duty.
Many of us didn’t need a television series, however compelling, to remind us of the exceptional courage and selflessness of this remarkable monarch.
That’s why the pictures of her resolute yet sorrowful face at the age of 93 – as she attended church at Sandringham with her family while her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, 98, lay in hospital miles away in London – are so inexpressibly moving.
Her heart must surely be with the man she fell head over heels with as an innocent teenager.
Yet she continues to do her duty as she has pledged to her loyal subjects – all of whom know they could never match her for sheer backbone.
TIDINGS of comfort and joy be upon the star of Loose Women Andrea McLean and her husband Nick Feeney. They’ve won the Christmas present lottery. No, they haven’t been gifted a Caribbean cruise or all-expenses paid jaunt to Lapland. They’ve purchased, on one another’s behalf, the most useful, long-lasting and entertaining presents available – a course of couple’s counselling.
If you, like many of their friends, are aghast at the very idea, I beseech you to pause for a minute to consider. Nothing is a more important investment than your relationship. All the bath foams, furry slippers, scented candles and date-night dinners in the world won’t hit the spot if there are fundamental flaws in your romantic connection.
Cracks can be temporarily papered over during the festive season.After a few eggnogs and a surfeit of pigs in blankets most of us are prepared to overlook even the most glaring issues. When dawn breaks on Boxing Day, however, the craters and hollows loom large.
ANDREA is an empathetic and vivacious woman.At the age of 50 and on her third marriage, she’s learned that tiny grievances multiply into insurmountable problems if you don’t leap on them and try to sort them out. She’s confident enough to understand and broadcast the fact that even the most loving couples benefit from pouring their gripes and complaints into the ear of a trained professional.
Far from acting like a ringmaster, encouraging disgruntled spouses to further antagonism, a talented counsellor will diffuse anger, dig down to the root of any tension and offer concrete suggestions to stop a couple being glued into an aggrieved position from which nothing but splitting up can shift them.
Andrea says they need assistance to negotiate the choppy waters of mixing work and home life. With commendable candour, she says her priority is to discover tools that will allow them to communicate better to ensure they don’t morph into business partners instead of loving partners.
For this they should be congratulated. Simply acknowledging the need for intervention in your marriage is the first step along the road to living happily ever after. So unlike their shocked and incredulous chums, I salute their choice in presenting one another with negotiation – the gift that keeps on giving.
POOR Caroline Flack. The world knows the 40-yearold Love Island host was arrested for assaulting her boyfriend Lewis Burton, 27.
We’re familiar with her chequered love-life – and we’re aware of the irony. She presents a show where contestants aim to find love – but she never seems to find it herself. We know she “stepped down” from the new series, to be replaced by Laura Whitmore, 34.
What we don’t know is what happened on that fateful night. Whatever it was, it’s hard not to be affected by her recent post: “This is the worst time of my life. I don’t know where to go to. Where to look. Who to trust. Or who I even am.”
It sounds like rock bottom to me. Let’s hope Caroline’s friends and family can ease her panic.
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I’M not exactly devastated not to be included in the yuletide extravaganza at the home of actor Chris Hemsworth and his wife, model Elsa Pataky.
They are planning a sugar-free yule. Elsa has festooned their tree with what she must think are ornamental bottles of vitamins. Santa has been warned he’s not getting milk, cookies or a tipple.
He can expect vitamins to power him on his way. I’m as keen on a precautionary dose of vitamin C as the next woman, but on Xmas day I reckon a Terry’s Chocolate Orange counts as one of my five a day.