A special birthday

My mum is celebrating a special birthday this year. This last year has been rather difficult for her as she has learned to live with multiple sclerosis, a condition she didn't even suffer from at all until just over a year ago. It has been hard to live so far away from her during this time. We wanted to make her birthday special for her, so we planned a surprise visit to Plymouth last weekend. I rang my dad to make sure they were going to be around at the weekend, but we all kept it to ourselves and managed to surprise Mum by turning up unannounced on Saturday afternoon. I was very impressed with my dad, who managed to prepare a delicious dinner of pork chops, roast potatoes and vegetables for an extra five people without arousing Mum's suspicion!

We shared a lovely evening together and gave Mum her presents before heading to a hotel for the night. We could hardly have expected them to get the rooms ready for us and still kept our visit a surprise, so Travelodge provided the accommodations on this trip. All five of us sleeping (or in some cases not sleeping) in one room was not fun, but that's a story for another time!

The following morning I had a phone call from my brother-in-law to tell me that he and my sister were coming down to join us (they live in Bristol), so Mum had another surprise when they turned up unexpectedly at lunchtime. It was lovely to have us all together for the day as it doesn't happen very often. I haven't seen Elaine and Gareth in ages, so it was lovely to spend time with them. We had a little party lunch, involving the usual party food and then some of us went for a walk with the dogs. The plan was for us all to go out for a  meal in the evening, but unfortunately Emma took ill so we sent Mum, Dad, Elaine and Gareth off for the meal and we packed to head back home. We were able to say a last goodbye as they returned from the meal just as we were getting into the car.

We had a lovely weekend and I'm so glad we were able to surprise my Mum for her birthday.

Mum, I love you very much and I'm so proud of how you have coped this last year.

Happy 60th Birthday!!

The birthday cake I made for Mum. We have a tradition of Smartie cakes for birthdays in our family that was started by my maternal grandmother, so I thought my Mum might appreciate a Smartie cake for her 60th. This photo was taken after Tom had been experimenting with candle placement, hence the holes in the chocolate!

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