It’s seven days until Christmas Eve, and this is always an exciting day because it’s my husband’s birthday. I often think of his mother, and how thankful she must have been that her baby arrived in time for Christmas and so she was able to enjoy it without worrying about an imminent arrival! It was snowing heavily when he put in his appearance, and he was delivered at home by a doctor. His parents were living away from their families, but no doubt travelled back to be with overjoyed grandparents, sisters and brothers-in-law. Several years later I arrived in the world after eighteen days Christmas, and unlike the dep snow when my husband appeared, the weather was cool, unsettled and wet – so records say.
I wasn’t born at home but in the Cambridge Maternity Hospital and in those days babies did not stay with their mothers but were put in a separate room with all the other babies born at that time. Dad couldn’t even hold me, he had to look through a window at me in my little cot, along with all the others. It was the same when my sister arrived two years later – she apparently, was the infant angrily screaming its head off! It must have been so hard for my mum and other mothers, to be separated from their baby having given birth on their own – no dads allowed. When I had my children they were beside me all the time I was in hospital, which was only a few days.
If you believe in such things, my husband is a Sagittarius, the same as my mum was. Apparently Sagittarians have dynamism and wit, are open and generous, and according to one site, ‘Sagittarius tend to have an impetuous character, who tend to be great athletes, quite cheerful and jovial, and are very studious. In turn, as a negative note of their personality, they are somewhat reckless, a bit radical and somewhat capricious.’ I can’t say that many of those characteristics and traits are typical of him, or of mum, although both could truly be described as open, generous and cheerful!
Lois Elsden 