Romance and the fairytale

Have you ever seen 'The Notebook'? The film of the Nicholas Sparks book. If you like romantic films (and I do when they're done well) it is one of the most beautiful films ever made, in my opinion. I'd put it up there with the greats like 'Brief Encounter' and 'Dr Zhivago'. It's that good. Do you know why I think it's that good? Because it offers hope. It offers the pure and simple dream that the fairytale is possible, throughout all the crap we have in our lives, throughout all the pain we endure, that love, the everlasting kind, exists and is possible. Of course the cynics will say it's Hollywood schmaltz, but to me, and the many thousands of people around the world, it's possible and it's beautiful. Here's the other thing as well: it was inspired by real events. Nicholas Sparks' wife's grandparents who were married for 60 years were the basis of the idea of the story, which backs up the theory. True love is possible. It's not easy, but it is possible.

Finding sleeping beauty

If romance exists and love can be all consuming how does it effect you most? When I wrote 'touch of a kiss' last year it struck a chord and I have been touched by the response. I do still believe that kissing is the most intimate act, but the moment of true love for me is when you watch someone you love sleeping. Someone who makes your heart ache and simultaneously burst with joy when you look at them. That moment when you go to bed and they are already asleep and you catch a dream dancing across their closed eyes. Or when you awake on a sunny morning and the light falls across their face like strands of silk and you realise that you have just slept with a real sleeping beauty. These moments never fail to fill me with happiness and a feeling of hope for a future still unwritten. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it exists none the less.

Yes! There is someone for everyone

I'm convinced that there is someone for everyone. I once had two clients who met each other through a vertigo sufferers group! There really are all sorts for all sorts. When you're lonely you doubt this to be true. That the utopia that I described above will never happen for you. I've spent many years in relationships and also quite a lot of time single. Overall I prefer being in a relationship; that feeling of closeness, of sharing, the waking with sleeping beauty. I have also learnt things about myself through being single, things that make my relationships stronger. I can cook and clean for a start. I've been domesticated. Mostly I've learnt to appreciate relationships and love. Time on your own gives you an awful lot of time to think and my thoughts often question how I feel about love and what it gives me. Here is what I feel: I feel that love is the mortar of life, if the events are the bricks then love is that cement that holds them together. When you're in love everything feels stronger, more real, more substantial. The gap that was there is filled and you don't have to worry about it anymore. All it takes is one morning to catch a glimpse of the peace of the face of your sleeping beauty for you to be reminded of how fortunate you are; that the bleak days are over and your life can take on new meaning. In 'The Notebook' this is what Noah feels for Allie and what makes it such a gorgeous treat to watch and to read. If you have a sleeping beauty (male or female) then try and watch them late at night or early in the morning. Let their face carve into your heart.

The quest for true love

Do you believe in perfect love? I have a theory. I often ask a person if they've seen 'The Princess Bride'; if they have, and many have, I then ask did they like it. Most do, occasionally someone won't; I struggle to understand how anyone can't. It's got humour, swordfights, treachery, excitement, great story telling and true love. I think that's what we all crave and yet it's so hard to find. If someone doesn't like 'The Princess Bride' then I wonder if they understand the concept of true love. I know it's simplistic and a man of my age should know better, but I think I'm an idealist.

It really does begin with a kiss

The most popular blog I've written over the last couple of years has been 'the touch of a kiss'. You may have even been kind enough to have read it. That seemed to reach people in a way that much of my writing hasn't. Was it particularly well written? That's not for me to say, but there was clearly a link that people were making about a kiss and passion. I'm glad because that's what I set out to to do. To stimulate and have a reader feel that first touch of passion and hope for the future. What happens when we get it wrong? Have you ever been in love with someone and you knew they didn't love you? What do you do? Do you stumble on like the love sick fool you feel you are or do you cut free and know that person is gone forever? What about where love once was and now, for one of you, it has faded and for the other it burns brighter than ever? Is this when the person in love is simply terrified to lose that which they once had?

Making it last

Love is indeed, a passing thing. So what of the lovely old couples who stay together? My mum and step-father are coming up to 40 years of marriage; I know for a fact it's been a long, tough road, but I'd hazard to say that they still love each other. Why is it that my longest relationship lasted 13 years? Is it because times have changed? We simply don't expect to stay together forever anymore or is it that we forget to work at it? The immediacy of someone else is so much easier to find, thanks to a transient population and Facebook. Did you ever leave someone and a year later wonder why you didn't stay with them? I know that many break ups happen for good reasons, but some relationships really should survive. I know I've had a couple that should have either stayed the distance or at least lasted longer than they did.

The Rubik's Cube of love

Love is so hard to find. Sometimes you love someone and they don't love you. Another time someone will love you and you don't love them. Sometimes you may go out with someone for a short while and you both know that it will never work. Finally there is the true sadness. The relationship where you know you both love each other and yet you can't make the it work. Pride steps in the way or you can't see the future together until you look back from the past with a sad backward glance and ask 'why didn't I try harder?' Love really may start with a kiss, but it's the heart that makes the passion and the head that sees the future. I included the video from 'Love Actually' because it sums up, in two minutes or so, exactly what I feel sometimes. Sometimes I'm the guy and sometimes I'm the girl - from the clip. Trying to find the right combination, one which will last, is a life's work. What I thought I knew I no longer know and what I know changes. It doesn't stop me seeking it or believing it, but some days are a little harder than others.