Romance in the air -- for some
Sunday February 07 2010
It hardly sets the right tone, but oh well. Nigella Lawson is doing nothing for Valentine's Day. "I stopped believing once I grew up," she tells me. The domestic goddess says that happened when she left Oxford University. And there was me thinking she and Maurice Saatchi were the last of the great new romantics. "Valentine's Day is not about romance," she says, "but sentimentality."
That other goddess Martina Fox will "sadly be working on Valentine's night" at her Bridge restaurant in Dublin. "Not very romantic is it?" says Mrs Robbie Fox, adding that her definition of romance is "being whisked to Paris for candlelit dinner, roses -- just having your someone special do something special for you and treat you like you are someone special."
L'Ecrivain's Sallyanne Clarke is being whisked (whisked -- Oh, forget it!) to Tenerife by TV chef husband Derry. Amanda Brunker, who will have just finished the second edits (yes, they do edits!) of her third novel Champagne Secrets, is being taken to Kelly's Hotel in Wexford for February 14.
Avril Kelly, the Compton model and former co-presenter of RTE's The Cafe, who got engaged to boyfriend Stephen Carter (one of the Carter Twins, managed, once upon a time, by Louis Walsh) in New York last month, is in a similar mood to celebrate. For Valentine's Day, they are planning a stay in the G Hotel in Galway or Brooklodge in Wicklow.
Top Irish model Gail Kaneswaren, meanwhile, is going to spend the most romantic night of the year in Pearl Brasserie with her fiance Dave Ryan. "We have been together seven years, but we split up in July," Gail tells me. "We are back together again. There's nothing like a good kick in the arse to bring the romance back."
And FM104 ladyboss Margaret Nelson is jetting to Madonna Di Campiglio in Italy on Valentine's for a few days rolling around on the piste with her husband Joe Nally. That's officially known as skiing.
- Barry Egan
Sunday Independent
