Living the dream in 2026

FROM THE HEART.

- Vanessa Feltz

GENTLE reader, you might think after decades of columns bristling with good intentions, most of which have bitten the dust by mid-February, I'd have learned to keep my resolutions to myself.

I haven't. I still hope writing down hopes and promises in black-and-white for all the world to see will make it more difficult for me to leap off the waggon and spend 2026 snuggled under the duvet with a box of chocolate biscuits, and shirking all challenges, like a comfortably ensconced sloth.

So, with all the resolve I can muster, I lay my dreams under your feet. As Yeats once disarmingly wrote: “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

I will not give up on finding true love. Mr Right may have been just a trifle elusive thus far, but that doesn't mean he isn't twinkling somewhere beyond yonder star.

I must find that star, follow it (maybe on Instagram) and he'll be there, smiling, rereading a Philip Roth novel and impatiently waiting for me.

If I unearth a few more frogs along the way, I undertake to remain optimistic and jolly. Turn bitter and twisted and even potential Prince Charmings morph into moist green amphibians. Vogue magazine says boyfriends are an embarrassment.

One by one my pals are announcing they've "done with" dating, can't be bothered being half of a pair and are as happy without a man as a fish is without a bicycle. That's fine for them, but it isn't for me. I will resist pressure to proclaim my delight in singledom.

I don't find it delightful. This isn't the moment to bend to peer pressure and pretend. I would like someone special to share my life with and I owe it to myself to have a vigorous bash at finding him.