Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I have a hatred of paper napkins – eating outside, they blow away; inside, people drop them on the…
Dear Mary
Q. My brother, who lives in southern France, uses unsavoury words to gain my attention, such as ‘infernal swine’, ‘schweinhund’…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I am at the stage of my life where I am often sending presents to newborn babies. These presents…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. As a novice user of Instagram I was flattered at how quickly I gathered followers – 200 already. Many…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I shall be spending more time in the company of newer acquaintances in the West Country and would appreciate…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We have been invited to a small but formal dinner in the presence of someone who has been a…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. The Queen had the knack of making you feel that you were the only person in the room. At…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We have made available our mews cottage – 30 yards from our main house – to a woman with…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I have had an email inviting me to an old girls’ reunion, class of 1976. The organiser suggested we…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. How can I find out, without making things awkward, whether one of my close male friends fancies one of…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Some older American friends take me and my husband out to dinner once a year when they are over…
Don’t grass
A neighbourly feud is worse than a hosepipe ban
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My 74-year-old husband was having drinks in the garden of some young clients when he bit down on an…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My parents are abroad for two months and as my flatmates in London are all, like me, working from…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Everyone was divine at a very jolly lunch I attended in the Cotswolds with the exception of one person,…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I was billeted for a party in Norfolk with a couple previously unknown to me. They were more than…
