It would be our first Christmas as a married couple, I was promptly pregnant, and I wanted to give Anthony an amazing Christmas present. So, after the wedding in March, I began to plan an adventure – a trip to Tasmania!
At the travel agency, I said I was expecting our baby in early January so it would be fine to book the trip for a little later. The look of alarm on the travel agent’s face resembled Anthony’s reaction that first Christmas when he unwrapped the thin present: plane tickets to Tasmania, accommodation at lovely resorts – I had thought of everything and it had taken me months to plan and pay for with my savings.
I was very disappointed by Anthony’s reaction to my gift and his ingratitude was particularly hurtful. “We will have a baby by then,” he said, knowingly.
“The baby will just be little, Ants, so it should be easy.”
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And it was easy: apart from Ming not being particularly fond of breast or bottle-feeding, and screaming quite a bit, and apart from Anthony having panic attacks at the airports, and apart from the resorts not being as resplendent as advertised, we had a very good time.
Needless to say, once we got home (and my love for the farm escalated dramatically after Tasmania), Anthony and I had to have a short series of debriefing conversations in which he asked me to promise him to never, ever give him a present like that again. I agreed.
Not long after we returned from our Tasmania holiday, friends visited and asked us about our experience. To my surprise, Anthony related the time we had at a lovely little restaurant where the wine was freezing cold and poured generously, and the smoked salmon salad was incredible. “And Jules fed Ming out in the garden – it was a lovely place.”
He had forgotten that the idyllic setting was marred by the fact that March flies were biting me while I was trying unsuccessfully to feed Ming. I was so glad to hear him have such great memories of this little restaurant and I will never forget it either, for different reasons!
Tasmania.
jmgoyder 
Ah , perspective
What a shame when you had worked so hard.
Surprises are often seen differently by the surpriser and the surprised as i have found. 🙂
It was a memorable holiday none the less