Dear Susan,

Just heard the weather forecast for tomorrow 21st May 2011. Sunny with fresh nor, easterly winds and the chance of an apocalypse. Apparently some strange religious sect (from the deep south of America, where else) has predicted the end of the world tomorrow. I KNOW. IT'S ANDREA'S BIRTHDAY. WHAT A BUMMER.

Anyway this could be my last letter. So carry it with you to the end. These zealots have already put billboards up all over Melbourne warning THE END IS NIGH. Josie and Tallulah are going around adding a 'T' to the end thinking zealots can't spell.

The news is causing me no end of worry, although I have lived through about twelve END DAYS during my time here. But it's always the same. I never know what to do first (or last as the case may be). Do I finish the course of antibiotics which is making me nauseous or do I risk the pearly gates with swollen sinuses? It's enough to make you contemplate an overdose.

And what about you? I just worked out that tomorrow you will be on the 6th day of your 7 day beauty plan. Won't you feel cheated if you have to meet your maker as a 6 when you could at least aim for an 8.5?

May I suggest that you don't tell Adrian. He'll go on a crash diet of vitamin E, oysters, asparagus, powdered horn of white rhinocerous and loot chemist shops for Viagra. He'll rationalise that if he has to go, he's going to go happy.

Rosie Josie and Eloise are having trouble with the kids. None of them will clean their rooms,brush their teeth, do their homework. They don't see the point if it's all going to be over on Saturday. Mind you their rooms usually look as though the apocalypse has already happened, so nothing's changed.

I was going to invite everyone over for dinner tonight as sort of last supper thing. But then I thought that everyone would want his/her favourite, you know like the prisoners on death row.

I thought of the menu they'd want. Roast lamb, lobster tails, pasgetti, 'thish thingers,' lamb stew, and of course Bronwyn's small roast vegetable frittata with Greek salad and rocket on the side. I figure if I spend all day cooking the food to feed the five thousand I'll be too tired to get up in the morning and experience the blast off.

Will I get to see Oprah's last shows ever before I go?

The guy next door is trying to polish off five bottles of scotch he got for Christmas. I wonder if you have hangovers in Heaven.

I feel very cheated, because on Sunday I was going to clean my kitchen cupboards, strip the shower recess of that green stuff, see if I could find the bottom of my ironing basket, finish my novel, start my diet, learn Italian and get married. Now all that stuff will never get done.

I've noticed that few people seem to be taking the prophecy seriously. The wars are still going on all over the world, as though it mattered who won. The munitions plants haven't stopped production. Scientists go on trying to develop super robots to see if they can do any better than the humans were stuck with. We live as though the lifespan of the plaet is infinite. Maybe that's the only way we keep going. But I wonder, if we knew the the date and time of the earth's demise , would we be a bit more careful about the way we treat each other.

Any way, see you at the pearly gates on Sunday morning or at Miranda Fair on Monday, whichever comes first.

By the way, I've been meaning to tell you for a long time; I love you.

Love

Janet