I find myself challenged about what to write tonight. It’s been the usual Monday except for a very early call this morning as MsDD set off with the Bromley Youth Concert Band for their tour of Andalusia. Luckily the Boywonder was up for 4.45 am chauffeur duty.

A frantic amount of cleaning and tidying before the arrival of our cleaning lady; a few phone calls and emails and then off with Oscar to dog class. Today we had an introduction to venison dog treats by Benyfit, the same company that makes his new raw dog food. They quickly became a new obsession, with Oscar doing unbidden tricks and being an extremely good boy to earn a tiny treat.

Back home, a quick singing practice and then out again for Raffles’s class. And that’s the sum of my Monday.

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Have you ever suddenly realised that you’ve been completely wrong about a person? This happened to me at the weekend.

There is someone with whom I’ve always got on well and we’ve shared many laughs and lunches. I realised with a recent lightbulb moment that actually this person will say more or less anything to soften people up and extract what she – for it is a she – wants out of them. She’s lovely and helpful and friendly and flattering but simply steamrollers her way over other people and their needs, bullying people to get her own way.

Such people are often attention seeking, I find. They’ll shoot their mouths off with little regard for facts, subtleties or a different point of view. I’ve realised that, having extracted any little amount of capital she can from me, this person has now spat me out and moved on.

It turns out that the detractors might have been right all along and the realisation is a bit of a shock. I find myself spooling back over conversations to check that I haven’t given too much away and wondering whether I can do anything to limit any damage that she might cause.

It’s really sad when someone you thought was your friend turns out to be not your friend after all.