Dear Sir,

I have a problem. Her name is Margaret.

Margaret lives next door. She is a widow, a retired yoga instructor, and the proud owner of a bush that has become the talk of the close.

I should be clear. It is a Forsythia. Or it was, twenty years ago. Today it resembles something last seen in a documentary about the Amazon. It hangs over the fence, intrudes upon my flowerbed, and has started tapping on my bedroom window during high winds.

I mentioned this to Margaret last week, as gently as I could. I said, “Margaret, your bush is getting rather large.” She smiled and said, “Oh, Jeremy. No one has ever complained before.”

I have thought of little else since.

Yesterday, I suggested a trim. She invited me to have a go myself. I stood there, secateurs in hand, staring at her bush, while she watched from her kitchen window, drinking something pink through a straw.

I managed two small snips before retreating to my shed.

Her bush remains magnificent.

I write to you now, humbled, asking for advice. How does a man politely ask his female neighbour to control her overgrown bush without making everything deeply, irreversibly strange?

Any guidance welcome. Anonymity essential.

Yours,

Jeremy Tattersall

Dorset

P.S. She just waved at me over the hedge. I dropped a trowel.