Yes another baby shower tea party, on two consecutive Saturdays! For the one last week, it was far, far away. It was up north in Derby, more than 3h drive on the road (I checked and it also takes the same time to take the train from Kings Cross station). When I told my sis in law Denise, she commented that it's like going to Bangkok. Indeed so.
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| How cute is this teapot? |
I travelled up with Mims, her sis Samantha and Yimi. What to say? This is called dedicated friendships hah. Phillipa, the mom to be, is having her second baby and it's a girl, who we call baby Smith. Phillipa and Richard are really people with hearts of gold. They are the unsung heroes of church and I do owe them. Years ago when I had to move house and all alone, they both came to help. And by helping I mean Richard borrowed his company van and drove all the way down with Phillipa to help me move all my stuff into the van, and then unloading it at my new place. You have to understand that I do have quite a bit of stuff (ahem) and it was only years later that Richard was joking with our friends saying that when he turned up that day and saw the amount of things I had, they both had a laugh because they couldn't believe how a petite Singaporean girl can have so much stuff?! (Yes, please don't judge here.) Not only that. When I was leading the connect group, they were again both the silent helpers in the background. Helping to buy and cook dinner for everyone, and stepping in any gaps to facilitate each CG night.. they even organised a connect group trip to Wales for more than 10 people one summer which was really nice (can you imagine the nightmare logistics). When a single mom member of our group had her baby, both of them organised trips to send food down, and help her move into her council flat too. Two years ago Richard was sent to Derby for work and sadly they moved out of London and the group of us stayed in touch via a Whatsapp chat group and we often share bible verses to encourage one another, and also prayer requests. Both of them are just such faithful people and so when the invite came through the mail for her baby shower, I knew I had to go.
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| One of the wishes on the tree |
I'm not surprised that her local friends had put in so much effort to organise this baby shower for such a kind hearted soul. The venue was in a lodge linked to a golf course in the village of Horseley and they had reserved a private tea room where they decorated with all things pink. Pink balloons, pink cupcakes, pink bunting, pink flowers… but before that, our 4h journey from London. We met at 9am at Waterloo train station and soon set off. Not surprising, it took a while to get out of London and up north on the M1 and once we hit M1, it was more than 100 miles up north. We drove from sunny cloudless skies to foggy skies and back to sunny skies again. Finally at 1.15pm we arrived. I felt like I had arrived in another country, just that there wasn't any passport control. It would have been faster flying to France or Amsterdam. Or Stuttgart (hello again Tews!).
We were seated round this long table and it was to be afternoon tea for everyone and we started by choosing our tea. Again, my trusty pot of Earl Grey. We "the Londoners" met girls from Derby and Chesterfield (don't know where that is btw) and surprisingly a group of girls who travelled down from Kent. Like proper Kent, which is even further from where I live. Wow, dedication girls, dedication! I was sat beside this lovely English girl called Debbie and her sis in law Sarah on her left; we started introducing ourselves and soon started chatting away. Auxi on my right is from Zimbabwe and she started telling me she has relatives studying in Malaysia and that she would love to visit Singapore and "oh do you attend Joseph Prince's church? He's amaaaazing…" I had to smile and say yes and she got all excited even more. haha she's funny.
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| Table all set, with seat numbers too |
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| Me, Phillipa, Patricia and Helen |
The cake stands with sandwiches, scones and cakes soon arrived to lots of "ooh" and "ahh" and we tucked in. Suddenly I remembered that my first introduction to the English way of tea parties was when I started reading Enid Blyton books when I was young. My first book was "Tales of Betsy May" and I remember Betsy May hosting tea parties for her dolls and golliwogs and teddy bears in her little playroom… I just enjoyed reading that book so much. I digress. Back to real life.
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| Homemade cupcakes with cute buttons |
Sarah and Freda were the organisers and they did such a great job; in fact at moments it felt like attending a wedding. There was a corner with all the baby presents; another with a small wishing tree for us to write wishes for the little girl; and another book of encouragement where were were asked to write a bible verse or two to encourage Phillipa when she is down/ feeling all emo after giving birth or after tiring night feeds. There was also a board for us to pin our baby photos because there would be a Guess who? game later. Yours truly was the only Asian girl there so it was naturally obvious when they saw my pics! lol really funny. There was even a hilarious game of "Best diaper competition" where we were split into three teams to make the best diaper out of the materials provided to us - tracing paper! Lots of fun and laughter, and appreciation to the special mom that afternoon.
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| Diaper competition. Yimi looking all serious selling her team's diaper to mommy |
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| Writing words of encouragement for mommy |
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| Guess the baby's name game - I went for Bailey and.. can't remember |
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| With the Londoners |
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| I brought two kiddy photos of myself |
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| and another! |
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| The pink wishing tree, made from a real Christmas tree. How pretty! |
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| Ended off the afternoon with Phillipa opening all her presents |
We had to rush off at about 5pm because of the long drive home. Plus Mims was not too comfortable driving on those country roads in the dark. Thankfully the return trip always seems shorter. We were back at Waterloo station at 8.30pm and I hopped on to the train home from there, bringing me home about 9pm.
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| Fitting everyone into one |
As much as I love English tea parties, I think I will take a break from them for a while lest I look like a scone soon.
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