Q. My wife and I live in a grace-and-favour house with beautiful gardens, of which our landlord is justly proud. He employs a full-time gardener to tend the grounds around the big house and also around our cottage. The gardener has recently developed a habit of using petrol-powered tools, such as strimmers and lawn mowers,
Q. Do you have a solution for writer’s block, Mary? A friend is the best company in the world, but I haven’t been able to speak to her for months. I know she reads her emails but they bounce back with the generic reply that she cannot respond until she has completed an urgent piece
Q. We own an estate and house in Devon. It is mostly used by family members but we do let several prime weeks. Our last tenant has annoyed us by writing in the family visitors’ book (a very personal and historic archive). She listed ‘improvements’ we could make, such as installing Sky television and providing
Q. I own a flat and have rented two rooms out to friends from university. Now they have fallen in love. This means the three of us are often in the kitchen at the same time or watching television together at close quarters. They never stop kissing and cuddling and declaring their love – in
Q. I own a small boutique in north London selling secondhand clothes which are exclusively couture. An acquaintance is a frequent shopper but has a tendency to return items a few days after buying them with reasons like ‘My husband didn’t like the colour’ or ‘I think it’s too young for me.’ I have been
Q. I spent day two of the Lord’s Test Match last week in the Grandstand. Shortly after play began, the adjacent seats were occupied. He, largely silent, was innocuous. She, of unpleasingly shrill-toned voice, wittered on inanely at high volume, barely pausing for breath, until they left late on. Destined to sit next to someone
Q. My wife has for some time been a member of a fashionable members’ club. A dear friend and ex-colleague recently approached me to ask if he could submit her details as reference for his application to such club. In some circles he may be deemed to be somewhat rough around the edges. Personally, I
Q. I have a friend who is a serious gardener. I myself am reasonably keen but not in her league. Last year she gave me some rare plants. Unfortunately I didn’t plant them very carefully and they ended up dying. She lives some distance away and I felt quite safe pretending they had flourished. With
Q. I was lucky enough to marry into a family where everyone gets on well. One of my brothers-in-law was the only one with a big enough wall in his house to hang a family treasure of a fragile antique tapestry, but last year he too moved into a smaller house and the tapestry now
Q. As I live just over an hour away from London I usually choose to take a late train home after parties, but train fever often overshadows my enjoyment of the gatherings. This is partly because even a glance at my watch will look rude and spoil the vibe. Do you think a braille watch
Q. I am organising a village fête and am happy to throw cash into it, as we want to make a favourable local impact as the new owners of the Old Rectory. We will have games for children, teas and cakes, secondhand stalls and a brass band. My question is – should I also hire
Q. My wife’s daughter and son-in-law and their family live about 40 miles away. Whenever they come to stay, he asks if he can use an electric socket to charge his new Tesla. Although he thanks me profusely for making a socket available, he does not offer to pay for the electricity. Were he to
Q. I remember a time when one could be confident of reaching all one’s circle through an announcement in the personal columns of the Times – for example to say that one was not sending out Christmas cards but instead would be making a donation to charity. Or, indeed, where one would be spending one’s
Q. I have some fairly new friends who very generously invited me to stay with them in Turkey. They told me who would be coming and I was slightly dreading meeting up again with one man I haven’t seen since we were much younger. He was always patronising and a bit misogynistic, and – as
Q. We have been introduced to some fellow parents at our children’s school. They are not quite on our wavelength – very status conscious and money obsessed – but we want to stay on good terms because our children are friends. Like us, they have moved to the country from London and bought an old
Q. When my husband and I meet certain friends for lunch, the bill is always higher than it should be, since one friend orders about five different dishes because she’s never sure what she wants. She barely touches any of them. We don’t want to quibble when it comes to dividing the bill, but we
Q. American clients emailed saying they were coming to Europe this spring and inviting us and another couple on a fantastic-sounding boat trip in the eastern Mediterranean which we rather shamelessly accepted. Last week I got a further email saying, as the holiday was approaching, it was time to sort out the financial side of
Q. I am a 29-year-old gay man. About four months ago I met a man at least 30 years older than me. We have become very good friends with many shared interests. I am certain that my friend (let’s call him ‘Tom’) has enjoyed the friendship as much as I have. It has been entirely
Q. Since my wife and I went our separate ways I have had lots of social invitations. My ex always dealt with the thank-you letters and I am useless at getting around to writing them. Now a friend has introduced me to an app called ChatGPT which writes letters and even poems for you if
Q. I work part-time with a lovely girl (aged 27) in a tiny office. She is very nice and not too woke. But she wears cheap scent that has a ghastly, acrid smell and I feel like I’m ingesting poison. Mary, what do I do? – Name and address withheld A. Why not borrow a
