Thank you Alberto - you are always giving me food for thought! That penultimate sentence: 'And people know perfectly well what they are doing, no matter how much they deceive themselves'.

Hmmm...at first I read it as ' no matter how much they try to deceive you...' In the case of Emma, she acted like she didnt know what I was talki g about but you're saying of course she did, she just didnt want to own the lack of care she showed. You are spot on!

She's since apologised and wants to meet up.

I think in all this, the victims are the two kids she has got, one when she was barely more than a kid herself. I havent used her real name by the way.