I reiterate: this is not supposed to be a misery memoir but this thing is on my overthinking mind and I need to park it somewhere. I have two Council Committee sessions this evening and I still haven't finished reading through - let alone summarising - the huge agenda so I want to be brief.

Two things stand out from friends this week and it's only Wednesday.

The first is my friend Ruth from Agility. We haven't known each other that long and so far only see each other in the fun and competitive/not competitive environment of that horse arena, but we have the biggest belly-laughs of the week in that hour and I've come to cherish the time with those unrestrained ladies. I suppose the suspicion of letting new people in lingers a little: I'm Obviously South Asian and she is Obviously Black and there is a shared and unspoken understanding of the risks of daily hurt that that brings.

Ruth is intrigued by my being elected a councillor and always calls me Councillor!, which makes me cringe-laugh hugely, as it's so inappropriate for that setting. This week as we waited our turn to jump (the dogs jump, we run them) she asked me whether that meant I was an MP.

"No. But I've passed the assessment and I could be, in theory."

"Represent! Seriously, you have to."

And she's right. I've been musing about this lately, realising that I'm the only opposition councillor in Bromley from a visible ethnic minority, and the extra responsibility that that brings, in the face of an entitled majority governing party that brushes aside talk of equality and diversity as unserious.

I mean, I knew this but it's shocking when older white man after older white man (including, shockingly, one from another opposition party - not Reform as you'd expect it from them - stands up and says that talking about equality is a waste of time. I do wonder what the visible ethnic minority Conservatives are thinking when their leader denounces modern equity gestures. Do they really not, by virtue of being Conservatives, have the same life experience of prejudice and micro-aggressions that the rest of us have? (Bromley is, by the way, one of only two or three London boroughs that refuses to fly the Pride flag).

Let me point out here that almost a quarter of the population of Bromley is of ethnic minority heritage, not to mention all the Europeans who have made this their home. I could shrink away or I could Represent, take on that extra mantle and try to speak for people whose life experiences are different from Normal for Bromley. I need to be brave, I think, and attempt to Represent even if that means at times shedding the veneer of "being nice," that glosses over real problems in people's behaviour towards each other.

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The LibDems sit between the Labour group and the Reform group in the Chamber. My seat has been placed next to Labour colleagues rather than Reform, which makes me smile a bit. Largely the Reform group don't interact much with us, though I have had a perfectly pleasant conversation with one of their Councillors in the past. Tonight I have two Committees, which means sitting next to Reform members. We might exchange the odd pleasantary but how difficult it is to shake from my mind that they might not even consider themselves a racist - though they might, who's to say? - but they still choose to be a member of a party that has built itself on racism and bigotry. That increasingly goes for the Conservatives. They might think that they joined the party of low taxes but the rhetoric increasingly embraces swivel-eyes racism and I don't know how a brown person can actively choose that. Power, perhaps.

Don't worry, I won't make a scene. I'm there to work and represent, and that includes representing those who would not vote for me because of the colour of my skin.

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I met an old friend for coffee yesterday. She has been a member of That Charity Whose Members Deposed Me for years. It was her resignation, prompted by someone else's disgraceful accusation of untruthfulness that finally made me resign. In her own words, she did a "massive flounce" after 30 or so years. She was very hurt by it all and I have detected an almost imperceptible coolness developing in her tone towards me. I am a bit oversensitive about this maybe, but it's definitely there.

Anyway she told me "I'm creeping back. I was at a Zoom meeting [about the future of the branch] and I saw all those familiar faces and I miss them."

I am happy for her. I'm glad she's returning to the community that was such a huge part of her life for decades. Truly I am. But I also feel a bit betrayed and still quite angry that the people who caused so much damage, who manufactured lies and poison against which I was unable to defend myself, they face no accountability. None. And after that unpleasant little episode, they go back to normal. And she's gone back to them.

So who does have my back?