Rosemary Weeks, a 28-year-old accounts clerk at a data processing firm in Bristol, has expressed her relief after her former boyfriend, Nathan McArthur, was arrested and detained under the Mental Health Act. The strain of his increasingly demented gift-giving had brought her close to a breakdown.
'We had only been going out for two months but I was beginning to think Nathan was my true love, he was so romantic,' Weeks told reporters. 'When he told me to expect something special for Christmas, I was so excited.'
On the first day of Christmas, Weeks looked out of the window of her basement flat and was touched to find a partridge in a pear tree in her garden. This, she admitted, was quite the most unusual Christmas present she had ever been given. The next day, two turtle doves arrived, which she took to be symbolic of their love.
'The next two day three french hens and four colley birds - whatever they are - came, so I tried using the eggs for breakfast,' said Weeks. 'When five gold rings turned up on the fifth day, I took it as a marriage proposal and was going to accept. Then it all got out of hand.'
Within three days, Weeks had gone to the police, having seen her garden dug up to provide a pond for six geese a-laying and seven swans a-swimming, while a herd of cows for eight maids to a-milk had completely ruined the green at the front of her house. Despite official warnings, however, McArthur continued with his gifts.
'I was hysterical,' Weeks admitted. 'The council was threatening to evict me because of the din caused by nine drummers drumming and ten pipers piping outside all night long, then twelve lords a-lept into my living room, turned on the stereo and started bonking the eleven ladies who'd been dancing there since the night before.'
Weeks broke off her relationship with McArthur in the hope he would stop, but to no avail. 'I even had the RSPCA on to me because the sodding partridge, which everyone knows is a bloody ground-based bird for fuck's sake, fell out of the pear tree and died. What kind of sick bastard is he?'
Now that her ordeal is over, Weeks is recuperating in Avonmouth General Hospital. Meanwhile, disgruntled sellers on Ebay are reported to be suing McArthur for his failure to pay in full for various other items, including thirteen single mothers a-pregnant, fourteen gypsies a-claiming benefits and fifteen Daily Mail journalists a-fuming.
