Of the track, they tell us ‘true romance’ takes influence from classic romantic literature, drawing a line between love affairs throughout the ages, and channeling them through our own gothic perspective. It’s a mixture of the intertwining stories of Cleopatra and Caesar, Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, Clarence and Alabama, and The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. We were also inspired by this quote from Wide Sargasso Sea – ‘Blot out the moon, Pull down the stars. Love in the dark, for we’re for the dark. So soon, so soon.’ true romance is about unrequited love, and all the unusual and intricate ways we express ourselves. We’re all different, we’re all strange, and that’s a beautiful thing.’

So he went searching for it. En route he found his wife Corinna, and explored cities around the world, including New York, London, and Sao Paulo. He fell in and out of love with them. He’s still searching for his place.

Never does the infrastructure overtake the inhabitants in Merrifield’s exploration of what makes a city. As he says: ‘Cities are two-faced. They’re subjective and subjective realites…The objective city is the hard city, made of bricks and mortar, physical and structural…The subjective city is the soft city, the city of the mind, of human consciousness, of human frailty and ambiguity.’

Cafes feature heavily in Merrifield’s assessment of the city. A place to be ‘a part of the action; detached from it, anonymous, sufficiently absent, yet absolutely present.’ Book shops are another key feature. Walter Benjamin once asked ‘How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books?’ Both of these places provide Merrifield with a space to create himself, steal out some time in the busy thrum of a city.

One of his favourite commentators on the urban is Jane Jacobs, who talks about the distinction between ‘city makers’ and ‘city users’ and the importance of always listening to the latter when it comes to planning and making. Marxism is another key feature, as the brilliance of cities is often built on capitalism, yet there must be a sense of collectivism to ensure that everyone benefits from the spoils. But Marshall Berman, an American philosopher whom Merrifield befriends, is the character who looms largest in the book. His thoughts on everything from urban streets to Starbucks (a place where the private is made public) make for fascinating reading, and clearly influenced Merrifield. When Berman dies, he is left bereft.

Merrfield doesn’t find his place. It’s not New York, or London, or Paris even, although he describes the latter as ‘a space that’s open to the world.’ He is unsure of where he is from, and whether to describe himself as Liverpudlian, or European, or something in between.

I finished unsure of what the book was – or rather who it was for. A love letter to Corinna, to cities, to literature, to cafes, to Marshall Berman? Towards the end of the book, Merrifield describes the city as ‘a school. It teaches us things about how to live together, how to love together.’ It’s that potent combination of individual lives being so closely brought together that makes a city infinitely powerful. Makes it something to love.

Our protagonist, Tess Miller finds her editing career floundering when she’s given a new assignment working with an old and obscure poet Edward Russell. His story of Rebecca Swift, an artist of yesteryear, is compelling, but there’s something else that captures Tess. Could the searing and tragic romance of which he writes be true wonders Tess? In a bid to garner publicity she goes on a quest to explore the true story, and ends up both rekindling an old romance and finding a new one herself.

The past and present are carefully intertwined, and both described with acute detail. It’s elegantly written and the themes of art, authenticity, generational conflict and love are delicately explored, but at the same time a captivating plot keeps the compulsive pace. Poignant moments are frequent, but never overused or overwrought, and there’s plenty of dramatic twists to hook you in further.

Secret Shores is Carey’s third novel, The House by the Lake, From a Paris Balcony and Paris Time Capsule all being bestsellers. It’s out now on Lake Union Publishing.

Visit the loveliest castle in the world

That’s what Lord Conway famously called Leeds Castle. It’s certainly pretty beautiful. Listed in the Domesday Book a castle has been on the site since 1119. Today there’s over 500 acres of beautiful parkland and formal gardens, a maze, activities, a lake, and of course the stunning home. Bought by Lady Baillie in 1926 for £ 180,000 (bargain!) it’s her style you’ll see as you wander round and, if things are going well, imagine your future home together.

See and save some animals

Run by the Aspinall Foundation and committed to conservation the 600 acre Port Lympne Safari Park is home to lions, deer, bear, largest herd of black rhino in the UK, western lowland gorillas, and the only giraffe in Kent. If you are a single parent dating there’s plenty of space for them to run around and animals to look at whilst you guys get to know one another without the worry having to pretend to be an alien/princess/giant mushroom. Just me as a kid?

Punt away

The River Stour passes through the whole county, but nowhere is it more lovely than in the cathedral city of Canterbury. Get a riverboat tour through the city, gazing at the old architecture and clear water. This is the kind of activity that suits everyone, from teenagers dating to over 50s dating, and everything in between. Wrap up warm in winter, bask in summer, and watch the world go by.

Enchanting Austen             

Visit the stunning seventeenth century manor at Groombridge Place, take a turn around the formal gardens, get tipsy in the vineyards and lose your heart in the Enchanted Forest. The 2005 film of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, starring Kiera Knightley, was filmed here Groombridge Place with the manor masquerading as Longbourn. And as love stories go, that’s a pretty good one.

Seafood

Every July the seaside town of Whitstable plays host to the Oyster Festival, where Oyster lovers and just lovers both enjoy the sun, sand, seafood and whatever else that famous aphrodisiac leads to. Personally I can’t stand oysters, but champagne – yes please!

The creators of FloVibe – Jason Pooley (The House of Yoga) and collaborator Lou Wellby of Jam Sandwich Live – have brought together all the things they love in one place, for a weekend of what they term ‘soul-nourishment.’

Starting from their five values of community, empowerment, connection, play and celebration, they’ve manifested them in a sparkling event that will take place on 2-4th June 2017 at the idyllic Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire.

There’s yoga masterclasses, dance and movement workshops, inspiring talks, storytelling, live music spanning folk, jazz, roots & reggae (including Cristobal & The Sea), incredible DJs, nutritious, delicious wholesome food and treatments in the woods. Rather than exhausting you, this is a weekend of revelry that aims to inspire and restore.

Tickets start at only £75 for the day, and are available here, with weekend and camping options available.

We find ourselves amongst Colin (Nick Holder) caring for his ailing elderly mother, Barbara (Anna Calder-Marshall), the unemployed Dean (Luke Clarke) desperately trying find a home for his pregnant partner Emma (Janet Eluk) and two children from a previous relationship, Jason (Vitaly Outkine) and Paige (Grace Doherty). More transient characters, perhaps a point about their migrant status,  are Somali woman Tharwa (Hind Swareldahab) and Syrian Adnan (Ammar Haj Ahmad), who light up when they discover that they speak the same language.

They are strangers forced to share their lives together in claustrophobic apparently temporary accommodation. The set by Natasha Jenkins is stark and bare, seats on the stage and fluorescent lighting keeping nothing a secret, breaking down boundaries between audience and cast in the same way as between characters.

Colin may be initially unlikeable, but as we see his unconditional love for his invalid mother, extending to her toilet duties, we become warm and broken hearted. Washing her hair at the communal sink with fairy liquid is one of only many tender moments between the two. The familiar protest of getting up in the morning and family merriment, rehearsing for a nativity play and football practice, thinking of a Happy Meal – these every days moments all become something to marvel at given the situation we see.

‘I feel like a little girl sometimes’ says an invalid Barbara to young child Paige, who she builds a strained relationship with. For so many through no fault of their own, be it war, unemployment, illness or any of the struggles we face in life, things don’t turn out the way dreamed of us a child.

Through overheard phone calls to council offices and failed meetings we learn the cyclical nature of benefits, housing, sanctions and punishments and the very real pressures they cause on relationships and situations. Dean and Emma struggle to explain to their children just why they are sharing a pack of microwave rice between four, and when Barbara says to Colin that his life will be much better when she has died and removed herself as a burden, he can’t disagree, as much as he loves her. It all feels futile and intense, and painful to watch and imagine those for whom this is a reality. This isn’t poverty porn, and neither is it social commentary. Instead Zelkin has created an honest portrayal of the lives of many caught in the poverty trap, restrictive and destructive.

Mesmerising in its mundane details, powerful in its psychological power, it was created through a collaborative devising process with an ensemble of actors, all based on real occurrences. Choosing to run at just over 90 minutes with no interval was a smart move, as it intensifies the emotional potency.

As Barbara makes her way from the stage through the crowd to what we assume to be a bewildered ending, the audience is on the edge of tears. A few seconds later as the play ends, they are on their feet, in a unanimous standing ovation. Raving about a performance of a situation that should not exist. The next question is whether LOVE has raised enough emotion within us to do something about it. That truly is LOVE.

LOVE is running until January 10th 2017

It was then, back in June 2015, that she decided to write a show about online dating. Swipe, now performing at the Camden Fringe festival, is an hour long performance of sketches and vignettes exploring dating in the modern world, and how choice can be paralysing, communication confusing, and the whole experience of finding love very much in flux.

‘All the scenarios derive from real experiences, and it contains a lot of my dating trials and triumphs. It’s a very real play that is swimming in the experiences of so many women.’ she says, but it spans the sexes. The tales are drawn from over one hundred interviews with women around the world, and whilst originally intending to be a cast of men and women, in the writing Alyssa realised  that she ‘only had a voice for women this time.’ This doesn’t stop it resonating with both sexes though. The small theatre was filled equally with men and women, and the nods and laughter came from both.

Corny chat up lines are nothing new of course, but the ease with which someone can disappear when you only know them from through your phone – ‘ghosting’ they call it; the simplicity of sending a dick pic, wanted or not; the disconnect between the persona you portray on and offline; and the temptation of simply moving on with only a swipe are all very much modern dilemmas.

Love’s not easy. New Match Collective have assembled dating horrors and highs through the lens of technology and modernity to create an hour’s entertainment that’s amusing, entertaining and utterly identifiable.

Running 18th -21st August at The Hen & Chickens Theatre, London, as part of The Camden Fringe. Tickets available here.

But things are changing, and there seems to be a liberation from this convention. Physical and mental, exercise and fun, solo and social, fun and healthy, zen and zing – this is the era of yoga socials.
http://www.trueyogacollective.com/#/yoga-gets-social/