6th October - Sarah's surprise 'Thank You' party

When Brian and I arrived at Kay's tonight we found Debbie, Andrea, Kay and Anya in the dining room putting the final touches to the decorations. We started looking at the menus for the local takeaway to choose our meals for the evening. People gradually started arriving. It was good to see some old faces that I haven't seen for a while. I spent some time with Robin who told me about his plans for starting a Phd in the near future. Eventually Anya got the message from Mike to say that He and Sarah were on their way. Robin went outside to watch for their arrival and at a given signal we all did our best to keep quiet as they entered the house. When Sarah came into the room we all shouted "Surprise" and let off our party-poppers. She was amazed and pleased to see so many people.
We rang through the orders for the takeaway and after a short wait, Chris and Kay set off to pick up the meals from the local Chinese. About twenty minutes later we had a phone call. Leigh picked up the phone to say "I'm sorry but Kay has just gone out". The reply she got back was amusing - "Yes I know Kay isn't there - she's standing beside me!" It was Chris asking for others to go over to the Chinese to help collect the food - they had been overwhelmed by our large order. Tim and Rachel went out to help him. Eventually at about 10pm they returned with our food. By this time we were all starving so there we all rushed to the kitchen. Fortunately everything was clearly labelled and everyone was pleased with their orders. On reflection, I think it would have been better to order the food before Mike and Sarah arrived so that we wouldn't have had such a long wait.
After the meal, we presented Sarah with the money we had collected for her - she was lost for words when she saw the amount- and the book of photos and good wishes we had put together. We then shared out the cake. I decided to leave at about 11pm as I was rather tired. We had a good journey back home. However it took quite a while for Brian's taxi to arrive so I didn't end up getting to bed until after midnight. It was good to see the party went to plan and that we managed to keep it all secret.