Here we are again – Feb 14th and Hallmark cards make some money and every florist puts his price up and I can't get a table at my local restaurant.  But for how many of you reading this blog is Valentines' a celebration of your core relationship or a blissful, secret celebration of the moments you share with your extramarital lover?  Should we have in fact another day dedicated to 'illicit love'?   Then we can leave Valentine to his faithful followers who cleave unto eachother and we can have our own saint (St David) to be a figurehead for the discreet relationship?

In any case I am sure it would be well sponsored and funded, men spend more lavishly on their mistresses than on their wives on Feb 14th and usuually put more effort and thought into the whole process.  Lots of married guys barely make it to the garage forecourt before the Esso station runs out of wiilting roses.  I am sure we can do much better than that!!

Answers please on a tacky 'Hallmark' card.

I had a bite of lunch with one of my favourite private clients yesterday – I have known him for years – a truly lovely English gent.   He has never been a philanderer in the true sense but rather a guy stuck in a dead marriage who takes his family responsibilities seriously but enjoyed the occasional escape of a pretty lady for lunch or tea.  Loving links allowed him some 'naughty' time where he could forget his committments and chat and laugh with women who he would never have otherwise had the chance to meet.  As I got to know him over the years it was obvious that his wife was a 'dragon' who made his life a misery.   Then somewhere along the way he acquired a mistress (not though us) but we continued to lunch, chat and philosophize.

Then yesterday, with the understatement that only the English can acheive, he said he'd had 'rather a trying weekend'.  Apparently his doctor had spotted a growth during a routine test and he'd been popped into a clinic for a biopsy.  As he recovering from the anasthetic his wife passed by with a bunch of grapes and at that same moment a nurse came into his room to tell him that 'Mary (or whatever the mistresses's name was) had phoned in concern for his health.  My friend still groggy from the drugs was given the third degree by the wife, who had started breaking the grapes off at their stalks, and he confessed!  Yes, he said, Mary is my mistress, and yes I do love her and I don't love you anymore at all, no way.  So wifey is somewhat put out by the revelation and phones Mary and gives her a tongue-lashing.

No sooner had my friend recounted this episode, the aforesaid Mary turned up to join us for drinks. His face lit up, it was a pleasure to see.  She was charming, playful and wise and I knew then that my friend had made the only decsion he could in letting it all surface.  The sniff of one's own mortality brings an urgency into relationships and a difficult divorce settlement pales into insignificance – 'carpe diem' is the watchword and I understand perfectly.