Mary Killen Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 8 June 2017

Also: dealing with the fellow house guest my husband can’t stand and the culinary effort that goes unrecognised

issue 10 June 2017

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.’ But how can I find out if he is even on the guest list without rudely asking before I give our reply?
— Name and address withheld

A.

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