Hi all, would like some advice on presents please.

[shaque]

Firstly, apologies for not being a mum! I'm a 19 year old chap looking for some advice for my mum.

My dad's recently not been well and I can see the stress on my mum beginning to show. She's also starting to get arthritis and generally degrading herself.

I have realised my parents probably aren't going to be around forever and I feel everything I can do now should make them happy, and birthdays/christmas etc need to be special and memorable.

Would you kind folks be able to give me some advice on what a mother would really like as a gift? Obviously flowers, wine and chocolate work up to a point but I'd like to think of something that really would mean a lot to her. I'm not sure what her interests are (apart from Neighbours and Cliff Richard), but I can't exactly whisk her off to Australia or ask Cliff Richard to pop round for tea. Any advice would be appreciated.

My current idea (for Christmas) is to get her a new car - she's been complaining that her Micra is too slow and she's getting a bit too 'used' to it (she's had Micras since early 2001) and I thought it'd be a nice gesture to get her a little Peugeot 107 or a VW Fox or something.

If you need any more information please feel free to ask. My budget for Christmas is set at up to £3000 for my mum. Sorry I'm not a mother but I hope you can sympathise in this case!

What a lovely son you are! Hope mine turns out as nice!

£3k is a fantastic budget. I know my Mum would love a new sofa / sofas for that money.

I recently bought my Mum an ipod, and she loves it. Might be a nice idea, you could even spend some time loading some family photos onto it / music etc.

Thanks for the compliments - I actually bought my mum a new dining table and set of chairs two years ago, and my parents upgraded their living room around the same time too. The iPod is a brilliant idea, especially with the family photos and music. I'll definitely have to consider that (possibly as a birthday present).

As for the automatic transmission, I think she enjoys driving a manual. Dad's car is an auto and she likes using a clutch etc as it keeps her driving skills up. I'll think about it though, it's certainly a very good point regarding the arthritis.

Thanks very much for the support. Does anybody have any more ideas that I can think about?

I did my dad a photo book of all his grandchildren online at Boots and he thought it was the best thing ever.

You just download your own photos and you can play about with the design.

Sorry - i just saw the bit that said £3 k - wow! Diamonds?

Besom, we do a photobook for every year, and I treasure them

Oooo, you know what I'd like for xmas if you were my son? I'd like a voucher thing that gave me xxx amount to spend on a gardening service, and a brochure showing what they offered. Then I could spend xmas till spring planning a revamp, and working out how to get the most from the amount. I'd love that!