Mary Killen

Q. Some rather flashy new neighbours of ours — I won’t mention their names as his will be familiar to a lot of your readers — asked my wife and me to lunch last week in their new barn as a dummy run for the cook they’ve employed for the shooting season. They were very enthusiastic about her cooking, but the steak and kidney pie was served with a perfect circle of puff pastry beside the meat on our plates. We agreed once back in the car and alone again that this was not the form, as a proper shoot lunch would have had it all cooked together. Were we mean not to mention it to them? — Name and address withheld A.

Q. Our best friends own a house in Morocco which sleeps about ten. They rent it out but go two or three times a year themselves and always invite as many people as they can cram in. They have much more social stamina than we have, so whenever they invite us, we beg that it can be just the four of us. They agree but always renege at the last minute and invite others on the grounds that it will be ‘much jollier’. We just want time alone with them in their undiluted company and we find big house parties mentally exhausting. But it’s not our house so we can’t lay down the law. Next time, Mary, how can we ensure we are the only guests? —S.R., Haddington, East Lothian A. Enquire whether you can rent the house yourself for a special occasion.

Q. I am in my seventies and my husband is in his nineties. The other night we had two couples to dinner. However, when they arrived (separately), we both realised we had forgotten their names, so when I brought the second couple into the drawing room I was incapable of introducing everyone to each other — they were meeting for the first time. This set the evening off to a terrible start, but our memory failure was no reflection of our affection for our guests or of our general brain power. Mary, what would you have done in these circumstances? — Name and address withheld A.

Q. Mary, I am what you would probably call a Sloane Ranger. I have great numbers of close friends and I’ve always attended confirmations, weddings, christenings and funerals without even thinking about whether it was convenient. But at my age a lot of friends’ parents are going downhill fast, and I now work. Many funerals will be out of London and require a whole day off to attend. I just can’t do it every week but neither can I let down my close friends. — S.C., London SW11 A. You won’t be the only person who is needed at work and can’t be in two places at once. But you can be the only person who gives a dinner in London to cheer up the bereaved in compensation for your absence.

Q. I was brought up to stick rigidly to any invitation accepted and never to ‘chuck’ when a better one came along. Recently, therefore, when invited to lunch at Boisdale to meet my favourite actor on the same day as a long-standing invitation to lunch at White’s with an old friend, I didn’t chuck the first invitation for the ‘better’ (because unrepeatable) one. Later, I wondered if it is ever acceptable to play Invitation Trumps — to just be honest and say: ‘I’ve had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet X on the same day as I’m meeting you. Would you mind if we postponed our lunch?’ What is the protocol, Mary? — Name and address withheld A.

Q. I’m shortly to host a very large family gathering. Everyone will be related to the same ancestor, so we will have at least one subject to talk about — but then what? We will be a disparate group, hailing from different places, professions, generations and walks of life, and with nothing much in common apart from our lineage. Most of us will not have met before. I am worried that the conversation will run dry as we cannot bang on about our ancestor for three full days. —Name and address withheld A. I note you live within driving distance of Bishop Auckland, so during August you can give your extended family another shared conversational reference.

Q. Last summer a friend of my brother-in-law’s house-sat for us while we were in Greece for a week. We paid him £25 a day and all he had to do was look after our dog and water the garden when necessary. I left food for him, including fruit, in our fridge. Mary, I say including fruit because, to my annoyance, when we got back we found he had stripped my raspberry canes of every single raspberry and eaten most of our figs. Because we couldn’t find anyone else he is returning this year and it might sound feeble but I just can’t tell him not to help himself. What can I do? — C.J., Chagford, Devon A. Buy a harmless food dye in navy blue and spray the produce before you go. Leave notices adjacent announcing: ‘Fungicide trial in place. Do not disturb fruit.

Q. Is there an etiquette regarding security gates? My wife and I were invited to dinner by new neighbours who have bought a house formerly owned by lifelong friends of ours. In the old days, any visitor would have just swung in off the road through the open stone gates and made their way up the drive to the house. On arrival this time, we were depressed to find black metal security gates barring our way. We waited for the sensor to open them but nothing happened. I then had to get out of the car and stand in the rain pressing buttons on an electronic panel. I waited a good minute for someone to speak and another one for the gates to open. Surely this sort of behaviour is not just pretentious, Mary, but also quite at odds with the spirit of hospitality?

Q. ‘Alfred’ is a friend of 30 years’ standing who has just married for the first time. Alfred retains all his charms but his wife is a horror show who carps and criticises our beloved friend in front of us. The only plus is that she is often away on business. Alfred has a country house to which he usually invites us over the summer. How can we tactfully arrange to be invited during one of his wife’s absences? — Name and address withheld A. Ring Alfred to synchronise diaries and find a time when they can come to stay with you. Keep saying the weekends he suggests are no good for you until you have compiled a list of dates when the wife is out of the country. Finally set a date for their visit.

Q. We have friends to stay each year in Scotland and it’s always a pleasure. Guests know there is signal only in my dressing room, and that they should clear their decks electronically before coming. Yet every year, due to poor planning, people need to commandeer our laptop. The problem is they leave business flotsam and jetsam behind, when I feel they should leave it as they found it. A bossy notice is not in keeping with holiday spirit, so how can one make this point? — N.M., Oxford A. If this happens every year, it’s time for you to stop fretting. Simply order a cut-price spare laptop to serve guests’ purposes, put a password on your own, and let them fight about the flotsam and jetsam among themselves. Q.

Q. I import a range of very high-quality food products from Europe into the UK. They are regarded as the best in the market and have a well-proven record in European stores, but the buyer at a well-known ‘upmarket’ supermarket is elusive. When I try to get in touch, he claims to be busy and, in the last instance, dismissively advised me to send some samples with a business card. If I do that, I will have lost the opportunity for a meeting in which I could grab his attention. — G.L., address withheld A. Counter his mental laziness with a four-pronged attack. Let’s call your products the Coup de Gout range and the upmarket supermarket Primary Palate.

Q. We have received a ‘save the week’ card from friends who take a villa abroad every year. We usually like their other guests but my husband has developed a near-phobia of one of their friends, a man who holds opposing political views from his own and is vocal about them. This man is in great demand socially, probably because he’s single and supposedly eligible, and we suspect he may be going too. My husband says that whatever the result of the election, he can’t face being trapped in a house party with this man for a week and won’t go if he is. I think my husband is behaving badly — obviously, when the firm invitation comes in, I can’t say: ‘We’ll only come if X isn’t.

Q. I am a member of a well-known country house opera society, and I organise annual trips to performances for a group of friends. We all look forward to these very much, as we don’t see each other as often as we would like. As the member, I have to stump up a large sum in advance for the tickets and then recoup the money from my pals. Unfortunately one of our party pays very late, often leaving it to the day before the performance to cough up his share. I don’t wish to embarrass him and we enjoy his company very much, but I do not wish to keep providing long-term free credit. Can you suggest a tactful solution? — Name and address withheld A. Next time, send a round robin urging everyone to let you have their cheques ASAP so you can get the best seats.

Q. My mother always told me that only boring people are bored. However she never got stuck at a drinks party discussing the pros and cons of HS2 or the impact of Crossrail on people’s commute. What is the best way of extricating oneself from a painfully dull conversation? Getting a drink is dangerous (they’ll want one too), the loo technique never fools anyone, and taking a phone call is rather vulgar. Are there any foolproof excuses I’ve missed? — C.U.S., London W2 A. How about sudden sharp intake of breath, then ‘Oh my goodness! Sorry, I must go and hide — my first boyfriend/girlfriend has just walked in. Will you excuse me?’ Cringe as you head for a more densely packed section of the party. Q.