Dear Mary

30 July 2011

Your problems solved

Q. I am one of eight retired golfers who once a week enjoy a sociable but not too serious game on our local course. Recently the wife of one of our group has taken to joining us and, although we are all good friends, we would prefer the weekly game to remain an all-male affair. To make it worse, the golfing wife is very competitive and is usually better than the rest of us. We do not want to sour relationships in what has become a very happy group. Can you suggest a good solution?

– P.B., by email

A. Collude with the others to build up your admiring responses to the wife’s golfing prowess. Gasps of admiration and open envy should be freely expressed. This will pave the way to insisting that she must leave your group and join another more suited to her abilities, since she is obviously way out of your league.

Q. My wife and I recently decided after considerable agonising to move our children from their inner London state primary school to a (none too grand) prep school a couple of miles away. The problem we have is that many of our neighbours are right-thinking folk (in other words, lefties), to whom capitalism in general, and private education in particular, is a cause of grave personal offence. My wife was accosted in the park this morning by a normally kind and friendly neighbour (whose husband is a state school teacher), who subjected her to a long series of hostile questions about our reasons for moving to the independent sector. What is an appropriate response to make light of such intrusive questioning, without causing offence or harming good neighbourly relations?

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Michele

August 19th, 2011 3:34am Report this comment

Choosing a school for one's child is no one else's business and should have nothing to do with one's political persuasion. If the better option is fee paying, so be it. The "leftie" in the park was ill mannered and way out of line.