Happy Valley

Parents round here will spend more on their dog’s party than I will on my daughter’s

Charlotte Cripps is organising a low-key party at her home in Notting Hill for her daughter’s third birthday. But when the local mums start discussing ski trips and nightclubs, she’s forced to make a decision

Wednesday 11 September 2019 14:04 BST
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Nothing compares to former Kensington and Chelsea resident Meghan Markle’s baby shower – which apparently cost $200,000 – but some of the birthday parties my yummy-mummy neighbours hold for their little ones are bigger than most people’s weddings. I’m a single mother on a small income, with two children conceived and born after their father died, courtesy of IVF. I just cannot afford to keep up with the Joneses or the Bentley-Coopers. Hence the extreme anxiety I’m having over my toddler’s third birthday party.

I was thinking of having a few of her nursery school mates over for a Paw Patrol-themed play date. And I’d already made provision to decamp the ravenous Golden Retriever to a friend’s house, to stop him getting to the birthday cake before Lola and her friends.

But when one mother asked me who the event planner was, I was thrown into a tailspin. I thought I’d pushed the boat out by ordering Paw Patrol cups, plates and a pink plastic table cloth – even a helium gas canister for the balloons. At first, I thought she was joking, until she told me that for her son’s birthday she had taken some of his classmates on a skiing trip to Zermatt.

Another mum, whose son we were inviting, told me she had hired a whole nightclub, with a live band, and released a downpour of inflatable guitars on to the children below, from a huge ceiling net. At another party in Holland Park, they had a live orchestra performing Peter and the Wolf to totally uninterested four-year-olds. I’ve even heard of party invitations inscribed on solid silver for you to keep.

Then to totally finish me off, a mum at Kensington Monkey Music class told me her child went to party in a suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, in Knightsbridge, with a separate suite for prams and nannies to hang out in.

My two-bedroom flat as the venue – and the idea of a Paw Patrol-themed pass-the-parcel game – feels like it won’t be nearly good enough. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is what Lola wants. Even if I offered her a weekend at Disney Paris she would still prefer to dance with her friends in my sitting room to Peppa Pig’s The Bing Bong song.

But I keep having flashbacks of being invited last year to two-year-old Astrid’s party at a local Kensington venue. It was a rave theme, with peace signs everywhere and kids wearing French clothes from local boutiques Bonpoint and Bonton, who were dancing on glass tables to rap music.

I thought she was joking, until she told me that for her son’s birthday she had taken some of his classmates on a skiing trip to Zermatt

I’m in the grip of an identity crisis. Around here parents will spend more money on their pooch’s party than I will on Lola’s. I start to panic and search online for a Paw Patrol bouncy castle, which at least will cover the dog poo-infested garden and provide a more dramatic backdrop. But when it’s delivered by a half-wit with dirt all over his boots, which he treads all over my clean floor hours before the party, I start screaming at the kids to be quiet and let me clean the place, which I do with the intensity of somebody escaping a plane crash.

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It must be added that the party was a great success. The M&S food went down well with everybody, except Lola’s friend’s dad, who owns London’s poshest greengrocer Natoora. He wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole – but then all his fruit and veg, carefully sourced and only sold in season, arrives in such a rugged state, it looks straight out of a field.

It’s really taking clean-eating in my area to a whole new level.

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