Q. Last week I gave lunch to my dear goddaughter and her equally dear mother in a fashionable restaurant. Both my goddaughter and I were rendered speechless when her mother produced a plastic bottle of water from her handbag and commenced to swig from it. The situation was quickly remedied when we both upbraided her
Your problems solved Q. I am visited by my 30-year-old godson who, quite often, brings a girlfriend to stay for the weekend. As I live in the country and have a septic system, I would like to remind him not to flush prophylactics down the lavatory. I appreciate that people in my situation often choose
Q. For her wedding present I gave my 28-year-old goddaughter a cheque, about five times the value that I would give to a mere family friend. I have now received a note from her which reads, ‘Thank you for the generous present. I hope you enjoyed the wedding…’ For some reason I feel that not
Your problems solved Q. When my husband retired two years ago I was pleased that I would no longer be obliged to be polite to his colleague, Bob. Now my husband says the reason he’s so restless at night is that he keeps having hectic action-adventure dreams featuring Bob. On holiday, Bob managed to infiltrate
Q. I have lived in Indochina for more than six years but I am still invited to various society weddings, exhibition openings, concerts and parties in London. Here in Cochinchina plenipotentiaries are kind enough to include me to garden parties on their national days and receptions when they have visiting dignitaries. Even my host government
Your problems solved Q. I have recently moved from New York to London to join my husband who is English and who works here. My problem is that when we are out together at, for example, early evening gallery openings or at the opera we often meet people my husband knows but who are new
Q. I have just moved into a sizeable townhouse which also comprises a separately owned basement flat (occupied by a young family). The entrance to the flat is set half-below street/garden level round the side of our property and down some steps at the back. The house has not been occupied for several months and
Q. I recently managed to put together a large party for a summer country-house opera at the Grange near Winchester. We decided not to picnic, but instead I had booked one of the private dining-rooms there. However, from past experience, it often happens that some guests will cancel at the last moment for one unforeseen
Q. My daughter has left her appalling husband and come to live with me while her new house is being made ready. Today a parcel arrived with the usual sort of impenetrable wrapping which needs to be cut through with secateurs. I attacked the packaging with gusto and threw it on to the fire. Only
Q. I am sorry this is anonymous, but I volunteered to write on behalf of a good friend — call her Anna Finch — who is terrified at the prospect of being identified in the small conservative village where she has lived for a dozen years. Here is the problem: when A.F. moved to the
Q. While staying for a weekend in a five-star Umbrian paradise south of Siena, you can imagine my horror when my breakfast partner recoiled at my pulling out my Baedeker on Siena. I always carry Baedeker when centreville-ing, but my companion expressed abject mortification and begged me to put it away. I consider myself to
Q. I have edited a selection of letters which is to be published later this summer. It is more than likely that, as part of the promotion process, I shall be asked to sign a copy here and there. However, it is not really my book, but that of the distinguished and, alas, departed correspondent.
Q. While staying in Gascony a local grandee, with a formidable brain and a château of great historical importance, was invited to dine. As dinner proceeded one of the two female houseguests seated next to him transmogrified herself from a kind, cosy, close and down-to-earth friend of mine, into a cross between Simone de Beauvoir,
Q. I want to give a drinks party for 200 friends. The alcohol is within my budget. Most of my friends are recovering alcoholics and the others are too old to binge drink, but I have been quoted £30 a head for food. I do not want to pay £6,000 for, effectively, a few kilos
Q. I travel frequently to Cape Town where I have a house. I always fly in business class or sometimes in first class. I wonder when it is permissible as opposed to rude to put up the barrier between me and a total stranger in the seat next door during the 11.5 hours flight? J.L.,
Q. I am in despair because I am growing fatter and fatter with every week that passes. I seem to have developed the most enormous appetite and now want roughly double what I used to eat. I have had all the relevant medical checks done privately and there is nothing wrong with me other than
Q. I have started receiving regular emails from a very old friend inviting me to avail myself of the services of the wealth management company in which he is a partner. Since I am penniless, and from the uncharacteristically humour-free tenor of these letters, I can tell that I was never meant to be a
Q. During a lavish lunch party last month, our host was insulting about my new boyfriend, whom I had brought along with his permission. His actual words were, ‘He’s not my particular cup of tea, darling.’ He said this privately to me, not to the whole table. At the time I laughed it off and
Q. Later this summer my boyfriend and I are flying out to the Aegean. Our hostess emailed to say we can get a lift from the airport with another couple who are coming for the same week on the same flight and who have already booked a hire car. She says she only needs one
Q. I treated four friends to a trip to the Far East. On the way back there was a cock-up at the airport with an overbooked plane and our party had to be put up for the night in a (magnificent) hotel. As a stickler for standards I wrote to the airline to complain and
