Dear Mary | 27 October 2016

Q. We hired a villa in the Camargue through the so-called ‘Sloane web’. You either know the uber-Sloane who runs it or you don’t. All his properties are in perfect taste and located in idyllic spots. No one is ripped off. However, we have just returned from a villa whose (Sloane) owner stayed on in an annexe close by for the first three days and continued to do lengths in the pool every morning and join us for dinner every night, dropping names all through the courses to justify her presence. She was fine as a person but we had paid to have the villa to ourselves. What should we have done?
— Name and address withheld

A. After dinner on the first night you should have used the fond farewell tactic, saying ‘Lovely seeing you. Let’s make a date for your next visit.’ When she retorted ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,’ you would have replied, ‘’Fraid not.