Tuesday December 2008
The plans for the surprise 60th Birthday celebrations for Nora started in February. I started to trawl through various web sites for a suitable party house.
Toad Hall wasn't even finished at this point, but the description Nichola sent through sounded perfect - the reality was even better!
With careful plotting and planning during the following months with the team at Eaton Manor, we covered every eventuality to ensure our secret was secure.
Nora thought she was going away for a quiet weekend in the country with her husband, son, daughter -in-law and granddaughter. The immediate family of the birthday girl arrived on Friday 5th December and the plot thickened, there had been a flood in Curlew Cottage so we had to have the bigger venue of Toad Hall (complete fabrication Curlew Cottage is in perfect condition!)
However Nora bought in to this and welcomed the upgrade to the larger property - Nichola had even put a sign across the stairs asking us not to use the first floor bedrooms adding to the creditability of the story...
Our shopping for 14 people had been delivered and put away before our arrival - all I had to do was keep Nora out of the kitchen!
Within an hour she was sitting in the lounge sipping champagne looking out on to the wonderful view revelling in the luxury of her surroundings.
We'd planned to go out for dinner so Nora went to use one of the eight bathrooms offered at Toad Hall, to re-apply her lipstick; as she did we smuggled the nine additional guests in to the lounge, who all burst into chorus of Happy Birthday as she re-emerged.... tears of joy and plenty of laughter followed long into the evening.
Saturday evening was absolutely fabulous - Jane Wilde, a local chef came and cooked a wonderful three course meal for fourteen and eveything was superb, everything was washed up and cleared away before she left too!
To quote Nora "This is the kind of evening you read about in Hello magazine, I feel like a celebrity" this was the reaction we had all hoped for.
A special occasion spent in with special friends and family along with the ambience of a very special place made a much loved lady feel as special as she is.
All that is left to say is thank you to Nichola and the team at Eaton Manor for all your efforts. Your attention to detail that makes your homes so beautiful have earned me much praise and thanks from everyone involved with the weekend and really I should pass that on to you, because all I did was find the venue - you did the rest!
Thank you again
Vikki Cambridge - Surprise party organiser and the best daughter-in-law in the world (after this weekend!)