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

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.