Dear Mary | 20 August 2011

Q. I recently attended a house-cooling party. There were haybales around bonfires, barbecues and dancing to iPods with speakers. The house was open — although most of the furniture had gone — and we were invited to bring our own bedding if we wanted to sleep over. My 16-year-old daughter and I had a plane to catch so we left in a hurry the next morning. On the plane she remembered she had left two of her favourite pieces of vintage clothing at the party. As soon as we landed, I emailed our host to ask her to hold onto these precious items — a Hermès scarf and an Austrian loden coat — but she emailed back saying I was too late, she had been ‘hyperefficient’ and had already delivered a carload of left-behind clothing to the local Oxfam shop. She clearly took the view that if people were daft enough to leave things behind at a house which was being moved out of, then they obviously placed no value on them.