Dear Mary

Q. My friend and I are being driven mad by a woman at our church who, after Mass, buttonholes us in the car park and goes on about a small airfield she is in a dispute with. In church she appears devout but I can’t help noticing she never asks how we are. I once stood for 30 minutes outside Aldi while she told me about the deaths of her parents in Covid lockdowns. Naturally I was sympathetic but a couple who had let me go ahead to pay as I had only three items must have been surprised I was still there. How can we avoid her without being rude? – E.S., Sussex A. Smile benignly as you confide in the woman that, due to hearing aid issues, you cannot hear a word she is saying, but thankfully your friend is going to escort you straight home. Q.

Q. A central London bookshop has kindly invited me to be one of 30 authors signing copies of our books at its Christmas customer evening. I feel it would be rude to say no, so I’ve said yes. But I went to last year’s event at that same shop, and saw the excruciating sight of some of my favourite authors sitting alone and unvisited at their signing tables, while crowds were queueing round the shop for Gyles Brandreth. This would bring back my worst childhood nightmares of not being picked for games teams. What occupation could you recommend to pass the time as I sit there from six till eight, so I can at least ‘look busy’? I suggested taking my embroidery, but my sons say that would make me look too old. – Y.M.G., London SW6 A.

Q. How can I prevent my guests from arguing over politics at the dinner table? I have been working abroad for far too long so have taken a house in London next month to give a few dinners to catch up with friends. To one of these I want to invite two couples in particular. Both are good friends of mine, although they have never met each other. I know they would get on extremely well and probably even work together as they are in the same fields – but they have very different politics and are bound to start discussing these as soon as they walk through the door. Mary, how can I prevent the evening turning toxic before people have had the opportunity to find out what they have in common and exchange their creative ideas? – J.C., Florence A.

Q. Like a lot of my friends, my husband is selectively hard of hearing. He loves his garden and I spend ages calling him when it is lunchtime/someone has turned up etc. There is no mobile signal in the garden so I can’t ring him and by the time I have found him I am usually cross and hoarse from shouting. Mary, how can I make my life easier? – A.E., Pewsey, Wiltshire A. Get a pair of walkie-talkies and attach one to his belt. All men love going back to their childhood days and having the chance to say ‘Over and out’ and ‘Roger’. Walkie-talkies usually work within a two-mile radius. There are several well-known brands that market kits with three handsets for under £40. Q.

Q. I have been walking my dog with a neighbour who has turned out to be a very entertaining companion. She knows masses of local gossip and is very funny when oversharing about her own dating life. I enjoy hearing all this, but she has begun fishing for the same sort of details about my relationship with my boyfriend. It seems unfriendly not to reciprocate so how can I say, in a non-hostile way, ‘Sorry, I’m never going to tell you private stuff’ without coming across as disapproving of the graphic details she has given me about her chaotic bedroom life? – Name and address withheld A. Nip this in the bud by sighing: ‘I’d love to tell you, but my boyfriend’s an unbelievably old-fashioned romantic.

Q. I am becoming increasingly irritated at the thought of the eulogies likely to be delivered at my funeral. I just find the whole idea of people intoning from a pulpit on the subject of me deeply embarrassing and intrusive. Yet my family and friends insist that I must not cheat them of the fervent desire they inexplicably have to ‘pay tribute’ to me. I am not yet ill but at my age – 89 – I feel I am running out of time to deal with this problem. What can I do? – A.C., London W8 A. Ask your lawyer to sort this out for you. However it’s important that you do not deny people the enjoyment factor of group recollection.

Q. Scrolling through my WhatsApp contacts, I have found a name I don’t recognise but when I click on the profile I can see it is a very pretty girl. I suspect I may have met her on a night out when I might have had too much to drink which would account for me not remembering who she is. Because I don’t know how long ago this meeting was, or even where it was, I’m not sure if I can now send her a message and start a conversation. What do you think, Mary? – E.L., London SW11 A. Send a lunchtime WhatsApp saying, ‘I’m standing outside the Wolseley [or similar desirable hotspot]. Where are you?’ This will prompt an urgent confused response. Text back, ‘So sorry. I meant to send that message to someone else. He’s just arrived. But how nice to hear from you.

Q. As a male, what is the protocol when confronted with the noticeably bigger boobs of a platonic friend of 40 years’ standing? I have been told about them by mutual friends and will shortly be seeing them for myself when she and her husband come to stay. I usually compliment her on her appearance (because she does tend to look rather wonderful) so I feel that if I don’t refer to the boobs she may think that I think they are a mistake. On the other hand, to praise them could come across as a bit lascivious or what you might call ‘Benny Hill’. What do you advise? – Name withheld, Penrith A. Presumably your friend wants the additions to be admired, since why else would she have had them installed?

Q. We frequently have our very young grandchildren to visit. However it reduces us to teeth-grinding, stony silence when the parents allow their children to spend fleeting milliseconds at the table before galloping off around the room while we try to eat food which has taken time, effort and love to prepare. Trying to correct the children evokes defensive retaliation from their parents. We love having the family round. How can we tackle this diplomatically? – Name and address withheld A. Say nothing. The grandparent role is to love unconditionally and effect corrective behaviour by more subtle means than criticism. Tackle this with a two-pronged attack.

Q. My friend kindly arranged for me to use her freelance gardener and, despite the gardener working only four hours a week, she has transformed my garden. Today I asked if she could do any more hours and she said only on an ad hoc basis. This evening I received a message from another friend asking for the gardener’s number, as hers has left. She has a superior garden to mine and I am terrified this wonderful gardener will give the ad hoc hours she has promised me to this potential new employer. I have tried to prevaricate but I can’t lie to this lady. Mary, what to do? – E.S., Sussex A. It would cause resentment if the treasure found you had blocked her access to another opportunity. Instead turn the situation into a comedy rather than a tragedy.

Q. I am organising a funeral for a close relative and am puzzled that some people wish to attend the wake but not the service of committal at the crematorium. My view is that if you want to enjoy the wake, which will be a good party in a perfect country pub, then you should be willing to pay your respects first. Should I simply not inform these people in advance of the wake venue, since it is usual for this to be revealed only at the funeral on the order of service sheet? – Name and address withheld A. You could reply: ‘We haven’t quite sorted out the wake yet but if you haven’t got time for the whole thing do pop in at the end of the funeral to find out the venue.

Q. I was at a house party in Yorkshire where one of the other guests had contributed a large joint of cooked beef. Eighteen of us were within minutes of sitting down to eat it with salad for lunch, but while helping to lay the table I could smell that something was not right. The meat was fashionably rare and had also travelled for more than four hours in a hot car from London. Our host agreed with me. The very last thing she wanted was to offend this guest who had spent so much and made such an effort, but she could not think of how to explain her last-minute substitution of eggs mayonnaise without telling the truth. Unfortunately the well-meaning guest insisted that the beef was ‘meant’ to smell like that and kept urging our host to serve it.

Q. I have a public profile and have always looked after my personal presentation, but my identical twin has never bothered with hers. She wouldn’t dream of covering up the broken veins on her cheeks and her hair is quite grey and frizzy. Now I’m getting married and worry that my sister’s appearance could cause some of the clients I’ve invited to rethink my ‘relevance’. What should I do, Mary? – Name and address withheld A. Explain to your twin that after you had paid for a hair and make-up artist for the wedding, you came under pressure from a colleague whose hair and make-up-artist daughter could get urgently needed publicity from working with you. Would your twin mind taking the other appointment? It seems a shame to waste the money.

Q. I took a girl out for dinner last week to a rather expensive restaurant. At first we got on well but then the conversation went on to politics and I spent the next 45 minutes listening to a fourth-wave man-hating feminist. Despite her stance that women should share every opportunity that men have (which I agree with incidentally), when the bill came she didn’t even gesture to put her hand in her pocket. Was I right to be so annoyed? – N.F., London SW7 A. I ran this past another fourth-wave feminist. Her view was that the girl’s ideology was not incompatible with your paying for her dinner on the grounds that ‘he probably suggested the restaurant and he is probably on a much higher salary than she is’.

Q. I recently joined our gardener during his tea break and asked: ‘What news? He replied: ‘We went to see Dad in his coffin yesterday – he looked very smart in his suit. It is amazing what they can do these days.’ I was quite unable to think of a suitable response – and still cannot. Any thoughts, Mary? — R.H., Cheltenham A. One good all-purpose response in these situations is to nod and murmur: ‘So they say… So they say…’ Q. I am a moderately successful journalist and sometimes friends ask me to help their children enter the trade. The problem is: after initial contact, usually by text or email, the children do not bother to follow up and I am left waiting by the telephone with a reading list.

Q. I have got myself in a pickle. My boss was given a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal by a client. It came in a very smart presentation box. I thought it would be funny to open it and replace the champagne with a bottle of fizzy water. My boss duly took it home and I waited several days, expecting him to come in one morning laughing and saying: ‘Where is it?’ Alas, silence. So in passing I nudged him with a grin on my face and said: ‘How was the champagne?’ He then told me he had fallen out with a childhood friend and they had not spoken since Christmas, so he had wrapped the box and sent it to the friend – and the friend thought it was a snide prank. I have not had the guts to come clean, and the champagne remains in my desk drawer. What should I do, Mary? – H.R.

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, at increasingly antisocial hours, including a recent 6.50 a.m. chainsaw attack on some dead trees. We do not pay for his services, which include not only looking after our little garden but also keeping us stocked with firewood and clearing a tennis court for our use, so we are reluctant to appear ungrateful. How can we ask him to start later, without looking this gift horse in the mouth? – P.K., by email A.

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 of writing work. I suspect she is blocked because this piece of writing is important to her on an emotional level but she is also the authority on the subject and only 5,000 words are required. — W.M., London W3 A. In writing it is often much easier to correct something bad than to begin something good. Why not ask ChatGPT to write 5,000 words and email the result?

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 more Thermos flasks, and clearly encouraged the rest of her party to sign and also contribute comments. We get well-remunerated for these lets and my husband says we mustn’t snub them but how, without striking the wrong note, can I make it clear that this is a family-only visitors’ book? – Name and address withheld A. This inexperienced tenant is probably in the habit of providing Tripadvisor-type comments wherever she goes.

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 front of me. Of course I am happy for them but even if I had my own boyfriend, I would consider PDAs TMI. How can I get them to stop without coming across as bitter?  – Name and address withheld A. This phase will probably not last long but you are right – Public Displays of Affection do tend to offer Too Much Information – especially when performed in an intimate domestic setting. Send a shot across the bows using the following method.