The christmas stork.

Every year at christmas , my family, along with many others , looks forward to the giving and receiving of presents. Except in my family we look forward ,especially ,to opening the presents from my mother.


Mum has the knack of finding gifts that no-one else would dream of giving. Plastic wallets and bottles of beer, giant knickers and bright red lipstick. One year i received a huge nightdress. It was cream and made of a shiney, satin material . It looked like a massive tent and i was mortally offended. Yes, i am a large women but that nightie could have accomodated the whole family in one go!
The christmas before last my youngest son opened one of his presents to find a carton with a picture of a digital set-top box. He was delighted as he had wanted one for the television in his bedroom. He didn't open the box but put it to one side to open later. The other children (all grown ups) were envious of this present as none of them had received anything like it. Only the usual bits and bobs. When i spoke to mum on the phone later i told her how pleased Jonathan was with his digital box. She denied any knowledge of it and it took me a while to convince her that she had actually given it to him. Eventually she conceded that she bought things and wrapped them at different times in the year so didn't always remember what she had bought for people. Weeks later i found out from Jonathan that when he had opened the box it had contained two bottles of beer! Mum had used the box to wrap the bottles in. He was disappointed but managed to see the funny side. No wonder mum couldn't remember the digital box.
This year, because of the postal strikes, mum decided to buy her presents early and when my sister and i went for a visit in September she gave them to us to bring back. She issued strict instructions not to open them until christmas day.There was a huge present which she said was for me. She said that it had originally been meant for my sister-in-law but having asked her if she liked garden ornaments and been given a negative answer, she decided to give it to me! We duly loaded the car with boxes of presents but the big one had to travel in the back seat with me. Egged on by my sister and her partner i had a good feel of the parcel to see if i could work out what it was. Mum had said it was something for the garden and knowing her predelection for gnomes we thought it must be an enormous gnome! My sister suggested we opened the door and ,accidently, let it fall out. I'm ashamed to say we opened the parcel and lo and behold there stood a great big bird. We couldn't work out if it was a pelican, or a crane but eventually came to the conclusion it was a stork.
Soon, we had to take a comfort break at one of those large service stations on the motor -way. We parked the car and Philip set up his camping stove to make tea for us all. My sister and i, who share the same zany sense of humour, decided to give the stork an airing. It was mounted on a spike so we stuck it into the grass in the car-park and left it there while we went to the loo and then ate our lunch. We took some bread over to the stork and pretended to feed it. A smart land-rover came and parked next to us and the women passenger watched our childish antics in amazement. When we packed up to go and loaded the bird into the back seat she looked incredulous. I think she thought the bird was an ornament belonging to the service station to make the place look pleasant and that we were stealing it. We drove off , killing ourselves laughing, half expecting the police to be following us.

Once home i didn't quite know what to do with the giant bird. I tried sticking it in the lawn by the bird-table but it looked grotesque and would have frightened any real birds away. So, i took it to the bottom of the garden and placed it between two large fir trees. It peeked out
furtively. My dog saw it and backed up to the corner of the garden, where she stared at it and growled fiercely. I don't think she could quite work out what this strange creature was.

The bird remains there to this day. I haven't the heart to get rid of it, even if i did acquire it by default. When christmas finally arrives I must remember to thank mum for her lovely present
I hope she never finds out it has been in the garden for months..

From a very young age i have suffered from acute anxiety. This has had a major effect on my life, preventing me from enjoying myself and from doing the things i want to do. Everything i said or did would be subject to analysis. I would go over, in my head, the things i had said to someone or how i had behaved and worry that i hadn't said the right thing , or behaved correctly. Even a simple thing, such as a visit to the doctor, would involve me ,sitting, going over and over what i was going to say when i went into the surgery and invariably, once in there, i would say something completely different .
In my teens i loved music. I would go to discos but would spend the whole time sitting on a chair or propped up against the wall resisting my friends attempts to pull me onto the dance floor. Oh how i longed to get out there and dance. In my head i was gyrating to the beat along with the rest of them , in reality i was too anxious about making a fool of myself to join in.
When i married, in my twenties, it was to a much older man. I spent most of my marriage anxious about the image i presented. I didn't want to appear too young and frivolous so dressed older than my years and acted more like a forty year old than a young women. Pregnancy brought forth new anxieties, would my baby be healthy, would i be a good enough mother, would my husband love my children as much as he loved the children from his first marriage? With each child's birth there would be relief that everything had turned out fine but the next time i became pregnant i would be convinced that ,this time , something would go wrong. I didn't deserve to have another healthy baby. My children, apart from the usual parental worries, did not cause me too many anxieties. They didn't judge me and i didn't need to worry about how i behaved with them.Being a mother was a joyous and fulfilling role for me. My children were a constant source of delight to me, and still are, even though they are all grown up!

The old anxieties continued throughout my thirties and forties. I hated meeting new people,worried about parent's evening , sports day, options meetings ,any occasion where i had to speak to someone in authority or give my opinion. I tried helping out in my daughter's class at school, and while i loved working with the children, listening to them read, or helping them with art projects, my anxiety about having to go into the staff room at break time or during lunch made me feel physically ill and i had to give it up. I began to think that i would still be a pathetic anxious person, worrying about how people percieved me, when i reached pensionable age. Thankfully i no longer believe this to be so. I am now fifty three years old, menopausal, fat, diabetic and past my prime , but at long last i seem to be losing my inhibitions. At last i can truly say that i don't care what other people think of me. If i want to sing on the sing star, i will.If i want to wear a short skirt and high heels i will. If i make a fool of myself being loud and silly, who cares? Not me. As long as i don't hurt anyone by my actions i can do as i like . It has taken me a long time but i think i am slowly getting there. I can dance to the music! Goodbye anxiety , and good riddance.