Hi readers,

A subject today which touches all of us. We want to explore the question, what is love?

Is love that feeling we have towards our parents or our partner?

Is love that feeling towards our friends and colleagues?

Is love that feeling a parent has for a child, even if sometimes they have to show tough love?

Or is love that feeling we have for our football team?

What we realised is that love is so many things, and in our minds a bit like a variety box of chocolates.

That’s because, like the chocolates, love is mostly sweet. Sometimes it’s gooey, like when we meet a new partner. Occasionally we get really involved in love, so rather like getting a particularly chewy toffee stuck in our teeth! When we’re supporting our football team though, we probably wouldn’t take a box of chocolates, but might have a Mars Bar to give us energy to get through the highs and lows of the game.

Love is almost always a pleasure, just like the chocolates, but better because it doesn’t spoil our waistline!

Love can change too, as can our preferences for different varieties of chocolate. Like when we find a tasty new chocolate bar, so can we add new loves to our lives. Equally, if we don’t eat the bar of chocolate we have at home, and it goes out of date, it’s not healthy any more. It’s not so different with love - if we don’t put time and effort into things or people we love, then they most likely will, like the chocolates, no longer be at their best either.

In summary, love is rich and varied. We think we are lucky as a human race to have the privilege of experiencing love in so many different ways.

Adam and William are supported in their editing by The Friendship Club– a project for adults with learning disabilities, run by People First Dorset.