Valentines day

Do it with love
Keep your love alive this Valentine's Day with these simple tips. It's your February survival guide.

Feast your eyes

Tickle the senses and the taste buds with this romantic and beautiful strawberry and cream table arrangement. Tape a criss-cross pattern across a shallow vase with Sellotape, for the stems to fit in and the strawberries to rest on. Use cream roses for the cream and fill the rest in with plump, firm strawberries. Then, surprise them with the real thing for dessert.

Put love in a box

Give your partner romance in a box. Buy a gift or confectionery box (available from party shops) and fill it with a small scented candle, massage oil and chocolates. Make it extra special by adding a love poem or a picture of yourself. Line the box with delicate tissue papaer and decorate it with a ribbon.

Make a hearty salad

Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out watermelon hearts. Take a few washed spinach leaves and arrange them on a plate. Place three watermelon hearts on the leaves for each person. Add chunks of feta cheese, as well as thinly sliced red onion. Make a vinaigrette using raspberry vinegar and olive oil. Garnish with mint leaves.

Keep the passion alive

Prevent love from taking a back seat when you have children. Try the advice of Anne Mayer, author of How to stay lovers while raising your children (Price Stern Sloan): "Don't allow your unrealistic sense of duty to your children to make you and your husband strangers to each other, it's because you don't make time, and you don't make time because you've allowed your guilty feelings to dictate to you how your time will be spent. Remember you are lovers first, parents second."