Dear Mary…
Q. Can you suggest an original birthday present for a novice gardener who is not yet very experienced?
S.B., Aldeburgh, Suffolk
A. Yes, you can buy 1,000 worms for £35 from the Green Gardener at Rendlesham. Curiously, you can freeze worms, then bring them back to life – rather like those little magic fish available from toy shops. Your friend can thump the worms out of their container and down a pipe leading to the centre of her compost heap, where they will go about their business and render the heap a desirable consistency in half the time it would normally take.
Q. My husband and I will be entertaining a member of the royal family to dinner in the near future, and wish him to meet a female friend of ours, as we know that he will appreciate her sense of humour.
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