NOT JUST AFTER YOUR BODY
I moved to Argentina to pursue a journalism career. However, the first work I found in Buenos Aires was teaching English. I teach business English through an agency at some leading firms. I have one student, an engineer, who is recently divorced with three children under 16. The conversation can get quite flirtatious, and sometimes borders on the indecent. However, I try not to let it go too far. He is 44 (though he looks thirtysomething), I am 23, and he has invited me to go for a drink with him. Is that totally wrong?
MH, Buenos Aires
Yes, it should be dinner at least. But you should also tread carefully. Bear in mind your class is business English, not romantic English, and he is probably being calculatedly hard-headed. What he is really after is engineering a solution to his childcare issue.
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TRIALS OF URBAN LIFE
We live in a Georgian terraced house in the centre of Leamington Spa and thus have no drive to park the car in. Everyone parks where they find a space, and hopes that it is not too far to trek to the front door with the baby and the shopping. It is an inconvenience we put up with for the convenience of walking into town in a few minutes. In the week, a variety of office workers, shop assistants and civil servants abandon their vehicles in our street and walk on to work, not giving a jot for the residents, who, on returning home, find they have to park three streets away. We have put up with this as the price of urban living, but last week I returned to my car to find a letter tucked under the windscreen wiper. It asked that I move my car from outside their house, as "I do try to park my own Fiesta outside my house" (underlined twice). She finishes her letter: "I am sure you will understand, and this letter is not meant to be inflammatory at all!!" I haven't yet calmed down. Can you help as to how I should politely respond?
JM, Leamington Spa
The grown-up thing to do would be to pop round to her house one evening for a chat, in which you both discuss the deteriorating parking situation and decide to campaign for the introduction of a residents' parking zone. However, it will give you much more satisfaction if you take her note, use it to clean up your baby's bottom, then post it back through her letter box. This is a perfectly acceptable form of protest under EU law, an unintended consequence of it caving in to allow the protest rights of the French farming lobby.
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SLOPPY STOCKINGS
A recent picture of you seemed to show a fashion faux pas, in that your hold-up stockings had slipped below the hem of your dress. As this can be a common occurrence for those of us who like stockings, but can't be bothered with all the trouble of suspender belts, I wondered if you had any tips on how to avoid this sadly too frequent problem?
CM, by email
The solution came to me as I was wrapping Christmas presents: parcel tape. As a result, I was energetically boogeying across party dancefloors for the whole festive season in complete confidence and still bringing a smile to Mr Mills's face later.
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Send problems to: Mrs Mills, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST, or mrs.mills@sunday-times.co.uk. No correspondence can be entered into