Dear Mary…
Q. Earlier this year we went to stay with friends in Devon for the weekend. Our host went to tremendous trouble trying to find enough horses to enable our whole family (of six) to hunt. We had brought with us a present of a small box of chocolates and when, on the Saturday evening, our hosts took us out to dinner at a neighbour’s they brought these chocolates with them, exclaiming cheerfully in the car on the way, ‘I thought we’d give them your delicious chocolates. I’ll tell them they are from all of us.’ Either wittingly or unwittingly, they thereby conveyed to us their view that a small box of chocolates is a suitably proportionate present for a dinner party rather than for a weekend. Next time we go there, how do you suggest that we compensate for our negligence?
R.O.,
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