Dear God...

Dear God,

Hello! How are you? Hope you are enjoying your day off, although I expect in this day and age Sundays are taken over by paperwork and admin. Still, it's a Bank Holiday, and a lovely sunny one at that here in Kent, so hope same is with you.

I thought I'd write to you rather than using the usual form of communication because I want to make sure my question gets through. I am sure the usual method is being hindered by the increase in mobile phone masts and satellite TV clogging up the airways. So my question is this...

...can you explain, please God, what the reason is for the existence of the plant mare's tail? I say this as an allotmenteer who has spent 4 hours this morning digging the stuff up from her plot and feeling like she is not actually getting anywhere. There is so much mare's tail that we are in danger of turning into Follyfoot Farm. I'm half expecting Black Beauty to come galloping across the site with all the Thelwell ponies in tow.

And is it true, God, what I have read on the RHS website? That mare's tail is the most pernicious of weeds and once you've got it, you might as well say goodbye to your social life because it'll never go away and you will spend every waking hour trying to weed it out and/or hacking off every head that dares pop above soil level? If it is, God, then may I be so bold as to suggest that this plant wasn't one of you best ideas?

Whilst I am here, God, can I get a blessing for the dead rat that we found? The semi-decomposed, covered in flies, smelt like cat poo dead rat? Andy scraped it up as best he could given its putrified state and gave it a burial at sea - well, in the river actually. He dealt with it because he is a vet and a man so drew the short straw on both counts. I did my bit by finding it in the first place and not immediately throwing up.

Oh, and can I get a couple of 'thank you, bless yous,' too, to the nice neighbour who gave us some tomato and lettuce plants, and the other nice neighbour who popped across to tell us what a good job we were doing? Luckily, I wasn't swearing at the mare's tail when she did, because Andy had just made a nice cuppa on the camping stove and my blood sugar was high on a shortbread finger.

And whilst I am here, can I just bring up the subject of mosquitos? And could something possibly done to stop them making a bee-line for me as soon as I pick up my gardening fork? And if they still find me too irresistible and bite anyway, please could I not swell up like a balloon and itch for three weeks after? Thanks.

I think that's about it, God. Thank you for all the birds that visited today - the robin, the blue tits, the woodpecker, the geese, the two gentlemen blackbirds in hot pursuit of the lady blackbird and the thrush who got into the netted area of the allotment that was erected especially to keep birds out and away from the soft fruit.

And thank you for all the butterflies and bees, too, and the forsythia that is in full blossom, and the hop bine I found and almost pulled up because all I could see at that point was flipping mare's tail.

And thank you for reminding Andy to wear his hat so he didn't come home with a boiled head.

That's all, God. I'll wait to hear back from you vis a vis the mare's tail, shall I? Thanks for listening!

P.S Even though yesterday was 'Garden in the Nude Day,' I kept all my clothes on, mostly because of the mosquitos and despite my friend Vera saying that as I am going to be 48 this year I am just about old enough to start dipping my toes in the pond of eccentricity. And I wouldn't really want to perch on a spike of mare's tail sans pantaloons either.