Mummy to be

Today dawned bright and I moved straight into the kitchen. We've been planning, along with Ali's husband and best friend, a surprise baby shower for her and today was the day! I started by melting chocolate to dip strawberries into, what a way to start the day. Ali's friend arrived with a gazebo to put up in the garden - the weather held out for us all day in spite of the threatened rain. Another friend arrived with hundreds of balloons to blow up and decorate the gazebo with - we got blowing!
My task was to get Ali to the house without her realising anything was going on. I went round to pick her up so we could have an afternoon chilling out in the garden! She didn't suspect a thing, even accepting the excuse offered when her husband opened our front door to let her in. We walked through the house and as we got to the garden door she suddenly noticed all was not as usual. There were 13 friends waiting for her, a sandwich mountain, a balloon bedecked gazebo, bunches of flowers and a table filled with presents. She burst into tears of joy and immediately ran out to greet everybody. Stuart had thoughtfully brought her a dress to change into, so once she had changed and had a glass of alcohol free nosecco she sat down and held court.
We had a lovely afternoon, it all felt very normal and it was so good to have a live, in person, celebration, they didn't even have that for their wedding.
My sister came from Leeds and our niece from London, Ali felt so very special in her tiara and mummy to be sash - we got the daddy to be version for Stuart too, sash not tiara! We realised yet again what a very solid group of loving supportive friends she has, they completely spoiled her and just made her day.
Jon and the girls came up to join Kathryn towards the end of the afternoon, the girls were so excited. A wonderful day and worth all the effort of the last couple of weeks to organise it all without giving Ali an inkling.
The food mountain has more or less disappeared including the mini cakes from Mimi's bakehouse, the Colin the Caterpillar sweets, the pork pies, chocolate strawberries and chocolate tiffin. The gazebo is down, the dishes washed and we are relaxing. I'm for an early night!
We had such fun.
Keep safe everybody