A south London-based woman in her forties tells how her child’s playgroup became the unlikely catalyst of a romance with a local father.
I clearly remember the first time I spotted Dave*. We were crossed-legged on the floor of a toddler group in a hall, clutching a colourful parachute and throwing it up and down in the air. Our children were running in and out.
I’d been to a lot of these play groups with my sons. My eldest Matthew* is in reception, and my youngest Laurie* is at a childminder part-time, but every Friday I’d take him to “Twinkle Toes”. Dave stood out in the crowd as it’s more often mums there.
Dave and I started chatting. He told me that he worked in TV but was in-between projects and basically unemployed, so was doing all the childcare. “Do you want me to make you a coffee?” he asked. The hall had a kettle, tea and biscuits. I nodded and joked that I was surviving on six a day. “Yeah, if you cut my veins, caffeine comes out,” he replied.
We’d lived in south London for a few years, and one of the things I loved about the location was the amount of baby and toddler groups. I hated being alone with the kids. With both boys, I’d taken a year of maternity leave from my job in PR. Richard*, my partner, had not been able to take time off as he’s a freelance marketing consultant.
The flaws in Reform’s plan to scrap PIP and slash £50bn from benefits bill
Reform Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said it would stop some claimants “taking everyone else for mugs” by slashing personal independence payments, banning foreign nationals from receiving benefits and forcing long-term claimants to do community work.
What is in the plan?
- Under the plans, foreign nationals would be excluded from most benefits – including EU nationals with settled status in the UK.
- It would also shake up disability benefits through a new system of “Return to Work Cover”.
- Lastly, people on universal credit for more than 12 months who are fit to work would be required to provide 20 hours a week of community work.
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Renegotiating with the EU
Reform’s ban on foreign nationals receiving benefits would require a renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
However, it is not clear that Brussels would want to rewrite the agreement, and the bloc would probably respond with countermeasures such as stripping British expats of benefits.
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Making employers pay
Making employers liable for sick employees for two years could have unintended consequences. It is not clear whether Jenrick’s promise that cutting 0.2 per cent to employer national insurance contributions would be enough to make up for the extra costs employers would be incurring.
It could also create a perverse incentive for employers to not hire people with disabilities or previous experiences of ill-health.
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Voter backlash
- The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the new disability needs assessment plans are vague and savings could fall significantly short of expectations.
- This policy may not be very popular in many of Reform’s top target seats which have large PIP caseloads. It could also open up a vulnerable new flank for Andy Burnham’s resurgent Labour Party.
Russia and Ukraine trade more deadly strikes – the latest
Mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, said Ukraine sent 620 drones towards the city overnight, with 180 downed by Russian defence systems.
Ukraine faces drone attacks
Ukraine was also hit as the warring countries traded blows overnight. The state emergency service said a 59-year-old woman was injured in the Russian attacks.
Pictures posted on Telegram show firefighters battling blazes in two outbuildings hit by a drone in the northern Chernihiv Oblast.
Major e-commerce giant hit
- Yet another Wildberries warehouse was struck near Moscow.
- It is the latest in Kyiv’s campaign to take out Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, which it accuses of supplying Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
3 min read
go deeper on this topic
Putin’s fury at the UK could escalate his sabotage campaign
The news that Ukraine is using British-made drones in its deep strike campaign has prompted scornful words from Russia and talk of potential retaliation.
How AI can reveal invisible patterns in breast tumours
Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that can reveal patterns inside breast cancer tumours that were previously invisible.
Researchers believe the technology could help doctors predict how the disease might progress and pave the way for more personalised treatments.
What are these patterns?
- The patterns are caused by centrosomes – tiny structures that help divide DNA. Studying them has been “extremely challenging” because they are tiny and multiply regularly, which is what drives the disease.
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Distinct abnormalities discovered
The AI platform, known as CenSegNet, was developed to analyse hundreds of thousands of cells in tumour samples.
In doing so, it has uncovered two distinct abnormalities which had previously been thought to be the same process – one involved cells acquiring too many centrosomes while the other had abnormally enlarged centrosomes.
Defects behaving differently
Researchers found these defects behaved independently and could occupy different areas of a tumour.
The platform also helped discover that tumours with high levels of enlarged centrosomes were more aggressive, and patients whose cells had lower levels had a better chance of survival.
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The expert view
For more than a century, centrosome abnormalities have been recognised as a hallmark of , but studying them patient tissues has been extremely challenging. CenSegNet allows us to uncover that were impossible to see.
dr pauline swift, the charity chair of blood pressure uk
The fastest home-selling hotspots in Britain revealed
Your house could sell up to seven times faster in some parts of the country, property site Zoopla has found.
It comes as around half of local authority areas record longer times to sell than a year earlier.
What you need to know
While the average time to sell remains at 42 days in the year to July, houses in some areas take significantly longer.
For example, properties in Melton in the East Midlands took 76 days on average to sell – a 21-day increase compared with July 2025.
Sitting in stark contrast is Falkirk in Scotland, where the average selling time is around seven times faster at just 11 days – one day less for the area than a year earlier.
Is your home in a selling hotspot?
Zoopla said 180 of the 363 local authorities it analysed had seen an increase in the average number of days taken to sell a property in the past year.
Here are the fastest-selling hotspots in July:
- Falkirk, with 11 days
- Renfrewshire, with 13 days
- Stirling, with 15 days
- Clackmannanshire, with 16 days
The Scottish lure
Many of the faster markets are in Scotland, according to Zoopla, due to the Scottish sales market working differently to the rest of Britain, and homes generally being relatively affordable.
Homes in Scotland are typically marketed as “offers over” a price, with homes having a valuation and home survey available, Zoopla added.
Locations with sluggish sales
It comes as house prices fall, according to figures published by Rightmove yesterday, with homeowners struggling to flog their bricks and mortar.
According to Zoopla, these are the slowest-selling local areas in July:
- Melton, with 76 days
- Westminister, with 63 days
- Teignbridge, with 63 days
- Torridge, with 61 days
- Isle of Wight, with 60 days
- Thanet, with 60 days
- Elmbridge, with 58 days
The kitchen gadgets under £25
Victorinox paring knife
It’s comfortable to hold, with a point sharp enough for scoring pastry.
ProCook cast iron pan
For unbeatable searing and heat-retention, cast iron is the top choice.
Tesco chopping board
Priced at just £22, I’ve yet to find another board that matches it for sheer value and quality.
The kitchen gadgets under £25
Pyrex jug
It is the perfect vessel for blending smooth sauces, melting butter, or warming stock. It won’t stain like plastic and the red measurements never fade.
Salter scales
“I’ve had my slim little set of Salter Disc Scales for over a decade, and I’m delighted to see they are still made to exactly the same reliable design today.”
Microplane grater
It uses photo-etched stainless steel teeth that stay razor-sharp for a decade, something the lookalike copycats simply can’t match.
Braun hand-held blender
It’s an essential for everything from making velvety soup to getting the lumps out of white sauce.
Bodum cafetiere
As well as delivering great results, cafetieres are easy to clean and there’s no ongoing filter paper costs or pod recycling to deal with.
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The kitchen gadgets under £25
Oxo peeler
What truly sets it apart is the chunky, rubberised handle that absorbs pressure and stays completely non-slip, even if your hands are wet. It is inexpensive and incredibly durable.
Falcon pie dish
Made by fusing porcelain onto heavy-gauge steel for smooth durability, it is dishwasher, freezer, hob, air-fryer and oven-safe.
Eurostar rival finally gets go ahead – everything we know
Incoming Eurostar rival Virgin Trains has been granted track access for new services between London and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam in 2030.
It marks a step closer to ending Eurostar’s monopoly. The trainline has operated without competition for nearly 32 years.
Approval lasts for 10 years
- The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has given approval for Sir Richard Branson’s company to run up to 20 daily services through the Channel Tunnel between October 2030 to December 2040.
5 min read
Virgin Trains in Eurostar stations
- In October, Virgin Trains was told it could share Eurostar’s Temple Mills depot in east London.
- Temple Mills is the only depot that can be accessed from High Speed 1 – the line that runs between London and the tunnel.
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‘Still more work to do’
This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress and London St Pancras High Speed have made. While there is still more work to do, we are supporting and the wider industry to grow international services.
Martin Jones, Deputy director of access and international
What next?
Despite just clearing a major regulatory hurdle, Virgin Trains has yet to secure access to other rail networks.
It must also obtain safety approvals from the ORR and relevant regulators in the EU before services start in 2030.
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The golden rules for a happy, secure relationship
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr Amir Levine, author of bestselling book , explains why we behave the way we do in love.
Golden rules for happy relationships
Start with your own behaviours
The foundation of a secure, connected life is being what I call CARRP: that means being consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. All of these qualities can be enacted in small gestures every day.
Express your needs
People need consistency and connection to feel safe. This is not, ‘You hurt my feelings by never replying to me’, it’s more ‘this is the kind of contact that helps me feel secure’.
Golden rules for happy relationships
The appendix ‘inflammation’ rule
If a relationship repeatedly inflames your nervous system, you need to disengage and deprioritise it.
Lean on community
You don’t need hundreds of friends. You need people and places that regularly remind you that you belong.
Stop blaming childhood
Humans are much more complicated than: ‘this happened to you, therefore you are doomed to be anxious’.
Reach for a
secure script
When something unsettles you in a relationship, your first reaction is not always the most accurate one.
If you’re anxious, your brain may jump very quickly to: ‘this is the beginning of the end’. If you’re avoidant, your brain may say: ‘this person wants too much from me, I need to get away’. So one very practical thing you can always do is pause and ask: ‘What would a secure person do here?’
Loneliness elsewhere
When people talk about loneliness, they often assume it means you don’t have enough people in your life. But you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely if those relationships leave you feeling excluded, ignored or disconnected.
What to do
- Build a community that works for your temperament and gives you regular, reliable moments of connection.
- You can still be kind to people while not treating them as someone who belongs in your inner circle.
- Explain what you need. Sometimes people simply don’t realise how you are experiencing them.
- Check in with people: does this person actually feel that I’m reliable? Do they experience me as predictable? That’s the only way that you can start to become more secure.
Do some foods leave
you feeling hungry rather than satiated? Experts say there are…
Foods that leave you hungrier
A bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice
More refined cereals are digested quickly, and fruit juice, whilst one of your five-a-day, contains less fibre than whole fruit. This might mean you find yourself hungry again within 1-2 hours of eating this breakfast.
Swap the orange juice for a whole orange, the cereal for oats and milk or serve it with Greek yoghurt or a boiled egg. This would increase the fibre and protein content; two nutrients strongly linked with fullness.
Foods that leave you hungrier
These pastries are made primarily from refined flour and butter, and are relatively low in protein and fibre.
Toast and jam
Shop-bought packs can contain a lot of white rice, which is digested quickly, and the protein content is often modest.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Vegetable soup
On its own, it is often very low in protein and calories, so hunger can return quickly.
Unless it’s loaded with veggies, it’s probably pretty low in fibre.
Liquids are generally less filling as they require little chewing which may not trigger satiety signals.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Snack bars
They are ideal for a quick pick-me-up, but if reducing hunger is what you’re after, it’d be better to swap it out.
Low-fat yoghurt
A full-fat plain Greek yoghurt with berries and seeds tends to be much more filling due to the protein, fat and fibre.
On an empty stomach, it can actually increase your appetite.
What to eat instead
Instead of thinking about avoiding foods, think about what you can add to them.
- Add beans, lentils or shredded chicken to your vegetable soup and pasta.
- Thicken your smoothies with Greek yoghurt, chia seeds and oats.
- Apple slices with peanut butter, yogurt with berries and hummus with oat biscuits are better snack options than a pre-made snack bar.
- Have alcohol alongside a balanced meal containing protein and fibre.
When I reflect on my maternity leaves, I felt pretty hopeless and lonely. I was often trapped in the house, trying to get Laurie to nap (I was obsessed with sleep routines), and Richard was in his garden home office. He’d make himself a coffee, walk up the garden path and shut the door behind him. He used to pop in to get snacks and then disappear again. I knew he wasn’t working all that time but that office turned into his man cave.
Another thing that annoyed me about Richard was that he never got up in the night – even at the weekends – to help with the boys, and Laurie was not a good sleeper. Richard said he was stressed, there were always deadlines or pitches to win or clients cancelling work. I was too tired with my own work and parenting to challenge him.
I marvelled at how much Dave seemed to do. All the cooking, cleaning and childcare. I was burnt out by work and child-rearing, but Richard would never even check in on me. I sometimes suspected he was talking to someone online or perhaps watching porn. If he ever took over the childcare, he’d act as if I owed him something. It was a frustrating dynamic but one that my friends had with their partners too.
At another toddler group, Dave and I sat side by side on an uncomfortable wooden bench, watching our kids playing. His daughter Saskia* was the same age as Laurie. I asked him if he planned to have more children. He launched into a long story about how his partner Becky had struggled to conceive, that they’d had IVF, about four rounds, and couldn’t go through that process again.
“It was terrible, it almost made us split up,” he said. I was surprised at how candid he was. Parents can be like this though as they’re so tired, their normal defences are down. I took Dave’s number – to be honest I didn’t find him my usual type but he had piercing blue eyes which seemed to study me with more intensity than I was used to.
Laurie and Saskia seemed to really get on so we arranged to meet the following Friday in our local park. “I’ve seen you in there,” he said, “We only live a few streets away.” I didn’t mention that I’d noticed him before either. In fact, I’d even texted another mum friend and told her there was a “hot Dad”.
After that, I kept bumping into Dave when I was out on errands. I didn’t mention him to Richard but he didn’t ask me about my day anyway. When I tried to talk to him, he’d tell me he had more work to finish and disappear into his office. My dad had been the same, losing himself in work, and I was feeling depressed that I’d got myself into the same scenario, repeating a pattern that was imprinted on me as a child.
Dave had a very different personality. He shared everything. It felt so freeing to say the thing that was in your head. He was open about his childhood trauma. His mum and dad hadn’t got on. He had a brother who had mental health issues and still lived with his parents. Dave had also struggled with his mental health at times too.
He said Becky was the main earner, and was also lost in work. He was trying to get a project off the ground but he’d not had any luck. We sometimes just lock eyes when we were singing some stupid song about scarecrows and he’d smile. I felt like we were getting closer. I looked forward to the baby group and we arranged a couple of playdates on the weekend too. We ended up meeting up in another park which was further away.
Then one day, I noticed he looked sad. I asked him what was going on. “My Dad died,” he confided. “He’d been ill for ages with Parkinson’s but I just feel empty. I’ve started vaping, and have to hide it as Becky hates it.” I put my hand on his back, I don’t know why, it just felt natural, and that was the point where things changed.
The scene was chaotic with noise and kids shouting and crying. Dave reached back and held my hand. “This coffee sucks,” he said, and we laughed because it made the moment feel less loaded.
I didn’t feel guilty. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone touch you. Richard and I hadn’t had sex in 12 months or more. After that, I noticed that I was thinking about Dave a lot. He gave me a book of poetry. “I need you to read the one on page 19,” he’d said and it wasn’t an overtly romantic poem, but I read it 100 times.
I started getting fed this weird content on social media which was all about “what to do when you’re obsessed with someone and want to stop thinking about them”. Like my phone could read my thoughts. I never saw Dave’s partner Becky, and once we’d held hands, well, we never talked about our partners again.
“I want to see you on your own,” Dave said one day as we sat on a picnic blanket in the park while the kids played. “What do you think?” I didn’t feel it was wrong, in fact, I welcomed the fact that he wanted to take it to the next level. Richard was a workaholic. It was obvious that Dave had marriage problems and his wife was obsessed with work. That was why we were drawn to one another. He was becoming my best friend.
We told our partners that we were going out for drinks with a local parents group. This wasn’t unusual as I sometimes went out with a group of local mums. We booked into a cheap hotel in Brentford. Dave paid for it on a credit card as I was worried as Richard and I have a joint account.
We ordered a bottle of wine, and just went straight to the room. We had sex. I felt self-conscious about my body. “You have such beautiful curves,” Dave said afterwards. He vaped in the room, and told me that he felt like he was 100 per cent himself with me. “I can feel myself falling in love.”
That night, the first night we’d spent together, I’d returned at midnight. Richard had just sent me a barrage of texts complaining that the boys were grumpy, hadn’t eaten their dinner and it had been a pain in the arse getting them to sleep. This was my daily life when he was hiding in the shed and I just ignored him.
After that, Dave and I kept messaging back and forth. I had to delete the messages at the end of each day. I was a silly teen. Richard didn’t even look at my phone. Dave and I talked about how isolated we both felt. “It’s been going South for a long time,” he’d said. “She resents me because we’re having to rely on her income.”
Now when Dave and I met for playdates we found it hard to not hold hands. A local shop owner told me that he had “just seen your hubby” and I knew he was describing Dave because he’d seen us together around the neighbourhood. We were now meeting more frequently. Inventing reasons to go to the park with the kids. A lid had come off.
The kids didn’t seem to notice, but I worried as kids are smarter than you think. I knew my older son would possibly twig but luckily he was in childcare more of the time, and he only met Dave a couple of times. But also, there wasn’t any guilt. I felt like this was something I deserved.
Dave and I met again at the same hotel. The sex was amazing. I realised how much I’ve missed that. I have even bought some new underwear for when we next meet up. The texts that we send are more intimate than anything I’ve shared with Richard. I’m a 43-year-old woman but I feel 16. Listening to love songs on the radio and thinking about him. I find his energy so attractive. I feel happy, high almost – I don’t even mind looking after the kids anymore as I have this new love.
“I knew something would happen when I first saw you,” Dave said recently. “Who would have thought we’d meet in a smelly old community hall?” he said. It’s not the most erotic location it’s true (there is often the stench of dirty nappies in the air).
We don’t talk about the future. I’ve been shocked at my ability to compartmentalise and justify what I’m doing to myself. Sometimes I wake up in the night and think about what might happen if our partners find out. But I don’t think I love Richard anymore and perhaps I want to be discovered? I have no idea what that would look like, so I try to just stay in the moment. I’m not sure how the kids would feel – I know they rarely see us being happy, so it isn’t a healthy dynamic for them to grow up with.
Sometimes I worry that Dave will call it off, but the texts he sends are full of affection. “You work so hard and nobody sees that but I do. I see it all.” It was the kind of thing a female friend would text me and I was reminded of just how different Dave is. It’s almost as if he knows exactly what I need to hear.
*All names have been changed for anonymity