So now mum is officially double my age after hitting 50 last weekend. Her birthday was on the Thursday but as she was working away she decided not to open anything until the weekend when our family was all together and could celebrate properly. My sis and I had told her a while ago to keep 9 November available as we would be taking her out for the day, but that it was a surprise and we wouldn't tell her where we were going.
I booked Swan Lake (Matthew Bourne) tickets for our theatre in town on 15 August for mum, me, my sis, my friend and my brother's girlfriend, and everyone knew about it apart from mum. As it got closer to the date it was sooo hard meeting up with mum for coffee in case I accidentally gave away any spoilers.
So the day came and we drove mum into town and to a bar / cafe for an amazing cream tea.
Whoever invented the idea of making scones and filling them with cream and jam deserves a medal from my tongue and a slap from my thighs.
We all relaxed and chatted for a while and mum still had no idea that we were going to the theatre. But then it was time to take her in and we were thankful that there was a Bonnie Tyler exhibition showing on the same day as that's what we told her we were going in there for. I still have no idea whether she was mocking us and going along with it just for fun or whether she guessed that we were seeing Swan Lake right from the start, so who knows!
We made sure we were early because mum is disabled and has limited movement so we didn't want to end up in an accident on the one day Dad allowed her to be out of his sight;) so we had another coffee and when we knew the announcement was near for the show, we decided to take her upstairs ready for the exhibition. Then when the show came on over the tannoy I said to mum "do you want to go and see this exhibition or would you rather see SWAN LAKE". To say she was excited is a bit of an understatement:)
The show was excellent, really moving and great ballet however I did ask my sister in the interval to explain a few things to me because with the no singing and talking thing going on I just had to check that my interpretation was correct;)
After the show we headed home because we had told mum that we were taking her for a small family meal, just the 5 of us with 3 partners. Here was surprise #2 because mum had no idea that dad had been working his behind off to organise a surprise dinner with 30 people including my grandparents and some of my parents' closest friends.
To say mum was surprised was an understatement. I went to meet her at the bar when she arrived and I took her arm to help her down the steps, telling her that we had already taken our coats off and sat down. When she finally looked up as we were walking down towards the table, you could see her eyebrow twitch as she spotted one of her friends. She looked really confused for a second before looking across and spotting everyone else and realising what this was. She ALMOST shed a tear. And to say that me and my sis were relieved when mum finally showed up without a hitch was even more of one! Dad was telling everyone "I tried to get her out of the house and here on time but she couldn't decide what to wear"! Mum proceeded to going around and smacking everyone on the arm saying "I only saw you yesterday, I can't believe you were in on this!" It really was lovely to see her so happy.
Mum joined the iPad club (spoilt by dad) and we bought her a case plus a very special present. Mum's birthday was a special one because she turned 50 but this was the first birthday in 17 years that mum has spent without her best friend Georgina, who passed away earlier this year. Every year for mums birthday George would buy mum a Steiff bear. My sis found one on Amazon called Georgina, so this was mum's special present and I think she will treasure it forever.
Dans x
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