It was all over. TPR had found someone else and all that past talk of ‘Love you forever’ was disregarded.

He flinched just a little when I enquired about the arrangements for his brother-in-law Neil’s birthday party (just a couple of weeks away in February), and the recently booked Christmas celebrations.

I asked who was going to tell his mother that she (and the rest of the family for that matter) would never see me again. Only now he started to panic.