ALL my life, I've been paranoid about robots. "They'll take over the world," I was told, "and some day they'll rob your job."

But that wasn't the scary part at all really. What bothered me most was that the mechanical men with the monotone voices would eventually develop minds of their own and make me do their bidding instead of the other way round.

I don't even know why they had to be male in the first place, but the prospect of a female robot never even entered my head.

I read too much science fiction in my young days, I'm afraid. But you can imagine how I felt when I was introduced to the "Robomow", the latest robotic lawnmower that not only cuts the grass while you relax and read a book, but chews the cuttings and nourishes the lawn with the indiscernible digested bits. Hostile, to put it mildly!

I'm irrational when I come up against anything or anyone more competent or clever than I am - which leaves me in a constant state of irrationality. I wanted to kill it, actually.

"Take it home and try it out on your lawn, and maybe you could write a review of it, " said Robomow's Liam Burke, from Ballycahane, Croom. "My lawn!" I gasped. "My lawn would chew that thing up and nourish itself with the leftovers".

I couldn't tell him that I'm a mechanical and technological idiot as well, and that the words "programme" and " set" bring on mad fits of panic - and more irrationality.

Actually the worst part of the grass cutting for me up to this, was pulling the starting cord on the old petrol mower. The exertion was unbelievable and just when the thing would respond, I'd run away in fright. There was no guarantee of how I might react when the Robomower burst into life.

But Liam persisted, and now I'm in love with a robot. Besotted would be a better description. The lawn has gone from jungle book disaster to immaculate chic in less than three weeks - I can even have stripes if I want them - and the husband is mad jealous.

But if he had cut the grass every time I hinted that the prairie had arrived outside the front window again, instead of insisting that there wasn't "a blade of grass in the country", I'd never have fallen for the Robomower.

I don't know if I'm supposed to say this in what is meant to be a balanced review, but I think it's the greatest invention ever - better even than the printing press or the wheel. It's absolutely idiot proof. All you have to do is press 'go' and let it off.

It knows when it has finished the job, but if you want it to finish early, you just press 'stop'. You don't even have to carry it. You guide it out to the lawn with a remote control.

Maybe I'm getting carried away myself, but I do feel humble in its presence. It will save marriages and in the end it will save the planet. No more carbon emissions on the lawn - a petrol mower I'm told can produce as much emissions in an hour as 40 cars.

No more artificial fertilising, no more dumping of nasty grass cuttings and no more fighting over cutting the grass. Best of all, running costs are minimal - about €15 of electricity a year to keep the battery charged.

Apart from my husband grudgingly remarking that "it left out a bit" one evening, and then having to concede defeat when it reversed and swallowed the uncut tuft, I had two minor episodes in the beginning, but both were my own fault.

No-one in the family got a wink of sleep the first night, when the Robomow, which was plugged into a socket in my daughter's bed room, started emitting plaintive distress signals around midnight and continued at intervals throughout the night.

"Get up and look after it," the husband urged. But that was before I had bonded with it, so I just let it holler. Next morning, I found that the cat which had taken to jumping over the flex had dislodged the plug, leaving the robot without a power supply.

"Check the power supply" read the warning sign. No cranky monotone upbraiding me, thank heavens.