Is this proof that holiday romances are doomed to fail at home?
Within 3 days of meeting in Bali, they’d fallen in love. Soon the PR who inspired AbFab was on a plane home with her new beau. Now LYNNE FRANKS is alone again. So...
ABOUT 18 months ago I wrote a piece for this newspaper extolling the joy of falling in love in my 60s after meeting the man I believed to be ‘the one’ while holidaying in Bali.
German-born and Bali-based, this creative man seemed to offer so many qualities I had hoped for in a partner, and I was delighted that our lives had come together.
We were like a couple of naive teenagers who, without even really knowing each other, believed we were in love, with all the fun and highs that come with that state of loved-up, endorphin-soaked, giddy elation that’s truly intoxicating at any age.
Having both been burnt after long marriages and various subsequent relationships, neither of us had been looking for a relationship when we met through mutual friends, .
After nine days of passion in this jungle paradise, Heinz decided that he would come back with me to the Uk and we would start a new life together. We fell in love in three days, decided to move in together after another three, and three days after that we were on a plane back to London.
Impetuous? Oh absolutely. Foolhardy? Most probably. But exciting and delicious? Yes, and most definitely yes.
Which is why now, as I write to report that my beautiful love affair is over — surrounded by piles of boxes containing my, not our, belongings, in the home I’ve moved into alone — I have no regrets whatsoever.
Falling in love should always be embraced, whatever your age and circumstances. And I truly believe that my time with Heinz was meant to be, and brought me to a new love affair of a different kind.
Looking back, I can see that Heinz and I were a poor bet. Blind-sided by romance, we thought that it would be easy for him to leave his adored tropical home of ten years, where he was known and respected as a very talented architect, to come to a new country even though English was not his first language.
We were living in ‘never-never land’, where we thought that establishing a new career in his 60s in a strange place would be easy; where we could slot into each other’s lives effortlessly.
A land where I wouldn’t find his chainsmoking and late night sci-fi reading irritating once the endorphins had calmed down, and likewise he would be comfortable with my twice-a-day Buddhist chanting — something that I’ve done for years. Ironically, one of the things that attracted me to Heinz in the first place was that he didn’t know of my high-flying career as a PR guru. He’d no idea I was the inspiration for Jennifer Saunders’ chanting-for-a-parking-space character Edina in Absolutely Fabulous. He’d given away his TV 15 years ago. He never even Googled me!
Our constant moving around, as we decided where to live, certainly didn’t help either. I was happy in my new little cottage in Sussex, a rented London flat and my long-term home in Deia, Majorca.
Heinz was of the opinion that we couldn’t be happy in my existing homes, where I had history and he didn’t. He insisted we find somewhere new where we could build a life together — and I appreciated the truth of what he was saying.
We started looking in Sussex but couldn’t find the right house. Heinz had an obsession with climbing the ancient and mysterious Glastonbury Tor, which he’d read about for years. So we set off to Somerset for the weekend, unaware that our future was about to change dramatically.
When we arrived, we went up the Tor together with a local friend, but Heinz couldn’t relax that night in our B&B and decided at 4am to climb it again. Alone in the dark, with just the rabbits for company, he had an epiphany, like many visitors before him, and came back for breakfast full of enthusiasm for the area. Somerset was the place. We settled on the town of Bruton, and I immediately fell in love with its medieval architecture.
A contact told us about a large ecohome for rent nearby, with two houses and three acres of garden. It sounded perfect, with room for us both to work, as well as to entertain family and our friends.
WE TOOk on the rental, with plans to buy it further down the line. In the same way we had fallen in love with each other so quickly, we had now fallen in love with Somerset and had a new home where we could properly begin our life together.
And that’s when it started going wrong, though I can’t put my finger exactly on when it happened.
We both worked so hard to make our home perfect for visitors that we were exhausted by the time we threw our first big party there last summer, with all my beautiful family and some friends of each of ours.
We had people in tents and teepees in the garden, as well as in all the various bedrooms, and my gorgeous little grandchildren were playing in the tree house with other children, just as I had envisioned.
But much to my surprise, there was dissent in the Garden of Eden.
My family didn’t warm to Heinz, and in their own loving protective way, felt that perhaps I had rushed a little too fast into this new life.
They’d always been happy as long as I was happy, but knowing me as well as they did, they could sense things weren’t right. In his defence, Heinz was quite understandably wrapped up in relaunching his career rather than becoming the patriarch of a family he didn’t know.
But by the time everyone left, including his friends from Germany, the atmosphere was strained and the romance was starting to pall.
The size of our property made it easy to avoid each other and put off what neither of us dared to admit.
Heinz would spend more and more time in one of the buildings, which he called his ‘atelier’, designing projects, making interesting furniture and sculpture out of recycled materials.
Meanwhile, I was working on my new book in the other house or running my women’s empowerment workshops. Many hours would go past without us seeing each other.
He was a late riser and a late-night man, sitting on his computer until the middle of the night. I got up with the dawn, fed the animals and collapsed in front of the TV most evenings. We’d meet up with friends at weekends but were too far out of town to be sociable midweek. It was starting to be clear that we had less in common than we thought.
HEInz wasn’t interested in current affairs or watching the news — which was important to me. His interests in eco-science and spiritual architecture were fascinating and taught me a lot, but I longed to discuss the events of the day with him.
I even started smoking roll-up cigarettes to find a reason to sit together a few times in the evening — despite having given up years ago. That was how desperate I was to find something for us to share. That ended when I contracted bronchitis.
Of course, none of this is apparent in the flush of early love. How could it be? How would any romance ever soar if we had the whole story — introduction, plotline and ending — laid out before us at the start?
Likewise, my love affair with Somerset was only just beginning. To my delight, I found very close friends of many years living nearby, as well as meeting new friends of all ages in nearby towns and villages.
My social life was never more fun, especially round the time of our wonderful Glastonbury Festival, where I was lucky enough to deliver my women’s leadership workshop this year.
Some of the most interesting people I know lived locally — fashion designer Professor Wendy Dagworthy and husband Jon Prew, two of my oldest friends for 40 years, live ten minutes away.
nick Smallwood, one of the founders of my old hang-out, the zanzibar Club in Covent Garden, and his lovely wife Romy are ten minutes down the road and great mate Jasper Conran isn’t far either.
And much to my surprise, my fellow Buddhist and old friend Jenny Holt, who I hadn’t seen for at least 30 years, turned up to welcome me to Somerset on my first morning.
I found out through Jenny that there was a whole bunch of other locals practising the same Buddhism in the area, which was wonderful news after chanting on my own for the past few years.
But no matter how busy my social life was, I returned each evening to the awkwardness and froideur of a rapidly crumbling relationship.
Maybe it was the size of house, we wondered … and so we started looking for somewhere new to live.
This time, we settled on a 16th century property in the middle of Wincanton. It had incredible charm and potential. It also had a magical walled garden plus a shop at the front, which was a surprising but challenging new project.
Alarm bells went off when Heinz and I couldn’t agree on how we could use the space for us both to work from home, and after a return trip to
Bali for the New Year, which was certainly not the romantic time we had enjoyed the previous year, I decided it would be better to move into my dream house on my own.
Although we were disappointed with the way things had worked out, we still cared for each other deeply and appreciated that our relationship had brought us both to a new life in Somerset. We continued living alongside each other for a further six months while Heinz’s work continued to attract much acclaim.
Then, a few weeks ago, I moved with my loving dog Noodle and cat Louis into what I hope will be my ‘forever home’. I’ve created a beautiful environment where I have already started to entertain my friends and loved ones and where I plan to grow old disgracefully.
One of the first things I did on returning from Bali was to buy the 17th century pub next door as I realised the potential of it as a different kind of business. After announcing on social media that I was turning the ‘pub’ into a ‘hub’, I was inundated with questions from locals on my plans.
It has taken me a while to put my vision together, but as a serial entrepreneur I am totally thrilled with how it is developing.
Number 3 Market Place, formerly the pub, is going to open in the spring as a well-being hub, with an exciting ‘healthy’ restaurant, café and juice bar on the ground floor.
I am converting the first floor into the perfect workshop space, where I am going to host my women’s ‘Power of Seven’ leadership and business retreats as well as invite guest teachers who will be focusing on subjects from nutrition to natural beauty and how to survive and celebrate the menopause.
And the shop at the front of my home at Number 4 Market Place, opening in October, will sell beautiful women’s lifestyle and beauty products, unique designer clothes, hand-made accessories, vintage furniture and wonderful art and books, many from small, local creative start-ups.
I am planning for it all to be up and running in time to celebrate my 70th birthday in April.
I had certainly not intended to be so busy at this point in my life — but I love what I am doing and am so excited about the future.
Heinz is still a dear friend, and I have no regrets whatsoever about our relationship in any of its stages. I learnt so much about myself and, most importantly of all, found my home in beautiful Somerset where it feels like this stage of my life is really beginning.
Would I jump into another relationship if it were offered?
Let’s just say that I’ve started dating again. After all, age is just a number. So let’s see what there is still to come!