AFTER 28 years of marriage, it came as a shock. I thought I knew my husband well. I thought I could trust him.

But then I popped out to the shops on Saturday and arrived home to discover him cheating on me.

Right there on the living room sofa, the dirty rotten scoundrel had obviously been at it from the moment my back was turned.

“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted. He froze and the colour drained from his face. He really did look like a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights.

“We sat and watched all of the previous seven episodes together and now you go and watch the last one, the LAST one without me. How could you?” I wailed.

It was a small but insidious betrayal. We’d been binge watching the latest Netflix crime drama series, Safe, over the week and, just when we got to the last episode on Friday night, he said he was too tired. But was that just an excuse?

He tried to make out it didn’t mean anything: “I thought we’d both decided it was getting a bit silly, so I didn’t think you were that bothered,” he said lamely.

But I wasn’t falling for that old line. We had both agreed that, after watching it this far, we still wanted to find out what happened at the end.

I confess I was tempted to catch up on the sly behind his back after he went to bed. But I didn’t, because, I took pride in telling him, I have moral fibre.

“Of course it means something. You were weak. You gave into temptation,” I said. And, I demanded to know, was this the first time? Or had he cheated on me before?

I began to think back. When we got that Breaking Bad box set and I waited patiently until he got home to watch it together, did he already know what was about to happen?

And what about House of Cards? When we watched that, I thought we’d experienced all the highs and lows and twists and turns together too. Or had we? When he said he didn’t trust a particular character or predicted how the plot would develop, was that because he already knew?

“It was only the once. And I promise, it won’t happen again,” he said. But by now, I had started to question everything.

I thought our online streaming and box set-watching relationship was based on an unspoken but true commitment. Now I was beginning to think it was a sham all along.

“Here,” he said, handing me the remote. “I’ve wound it back so you can watch it from the beginning. You can call me when you get to the point I was at.”

He thought I could just forget, like that: “Sorry, but it just won’t be the same now. The trust has gone,” I told him.

True, when we first got together, box sets and Netflix weren’t ‘a thing’. Programmes were on when they were on and if you missed an episode you missed it forever.

It’s only because everything has suddenly become available all at once that this new form of cheating is beginning to cause problems.

So I’ve decided to give him one more chance. He’s on a final warning. One more duplicitous dalliance and that’s it: we’re in an open Netflix relationship.

MY friend and her husband were studying a Farrow & Ball colour chart in the kitchen, discussing what paint they would use on their woodwork when their 18-year-old son walked into the room and tut-tutted at them. “I don’t know why you always use Farrow & Ball. They’re so expensive. Why don’t you use Durex? You can get every colour and finish you want with Durex and it won’t break the bank. I’d use Durex every time.” Once they’d stopped laughing, they explained to him he probably meant Dulux.

A FRIEND who works as a primary school teaching assistant was helping out with a class outing to Harlow Carr gardens near Harrogate and wondered what five-year-old Harry meant when he started shouting: “Look, look, a laminator,” as he jumped up and down excitedly. “Then I saw the bee and remembered we’d been teaching them about pollinators earlier in the week,” she said.

AND then there was the youngster in the class who asked what day they’d be having their ‘spelling and grandma test’.