Q. Annoyingly, one of the Sunday newspapers ran an article about the ‘least used but most scenic footpaths’ in the UK, which identified paths in our immediate area. We have never had a problem with local trespassers on our own land but this article has prompted a deluge of incomer ramblers. They are traipsing not along any of the marked nearby footpaths, but across our field, which has no crops in it but is directly opposite our house. When I politely explain that it isn’t a right of way, they get very defensive, sometimes outright rude. What is the best way to deal with the situation, Mary?
– A.F., Shropshire
A. Try providing signs at entry points to the field. ‘Beware of the bull sometimes in field. Please keep to the footpath.’ (Attach a map of where the footpath is.)
Q. For the past several years we have rented a cottage on the Suffolk/Norfolk border and we try to escape London most weekends to go there. We love it and the contrast it gives us from the working week. Recently we had some London neighbours to stay and they raved about how clever we had been finding it. Now my husband has received an email from them with a link to a local estate agent who will be handling the rental of a small house, which is literally a ten-minute walk away from ours, asking if we could look round it on their behalf. Help! We like them a lot but we want to keep our London/country lives separate and neither of us want them moving so close.
– Name and address withheld
A. Reply that the property in question is mal placé but ‘do let us filter out ones which would be a waste of your time to come and look at’. Enclose links to ‘better’ properties much further away.
Q. Some days ago I went to a fabulous lunch party. It was a particularly good mix of people and our hostess had made a big effort with the menu. I wrote and posted my thank-you letter the next day but, given the unreliability of Royal Mail nowadays, there’s no guarantee that she will have received it. I can’t ring her up and say ‘Did you get my thank you letter?’ as that is making too much of it. A thank-you WhatsApp would not have cut the mustard for such an event. What would you do in this sort of situation?
– S.M., Ludlow, Shropshire
A. A first-class stamp currently costs £1.65 but members of the ‘thanking community’ can no longer rely on next-day delivery. Anecdotally, letters often take a week. You should still write by hand but send a simultaneous WhatsApp along the lines of: ‘What a fabulous lunch. Your letter is in the first-class post.’
Write to Dear Mary at dearmary@spectator.co.uk
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