Isis’s second day at dog school today. This time I intend to make a better impression. I make the ‘target’ I should have made last Sunday and used for practice, check that I have ten pounds for the class and the money owed to Hannah for the clicker.

Then I settle down on the futon to listen to The Archers.

When I get up, I can’t find the purse. I thought that I had tucked it underneath me so that Isis couldn’t get it. But it’s nowhere to be seen. I decide I must have put it somewhere safer. I search downstairs, getting increasingly rattled. Don’t think Isis has taken it but glance at the lawn anyway. No sign.

I tear upstairs and empty my rucksack onto the bed. Dirty washing, moss, twigs, grit but no purse. I search upstairs.

By now I am thoroughly wound up thinking that not only am I going to be late again, but once more unable to pay my dues.

Eventually accepting that there is nowhere else to search inside, I take a tour of the garden.

I find what I am searching for. It now resembles a macrame experiment more than a purse. Nearby is a pile of coins. She must have eaten the ten pound note, I conclude. I’ll have to borrow one from my neighbour.

Then, a few metres away, I spot the note. She had obviously shaken it out before destroying the purse, and not noticed it.

Bad-tempered, jangled and sweaty, I arrive at the class and begin the routine of winkling Isis out of the car and inching her to the site.

There is a trainee with Hannah today and Isis shows a more than polite interest in her shoes, crawling on her belly and sniffing vigorously.

Mel, the trainee explains that she has just returned from working with exotic animals in America and her shoes probably smell of monkeys and wolves.

Isis, working with Mel, excels herself. I – the one with the shredded purse – am useless.