Wet & dreary day

Usually, I wouldn't mind a little bit of rain... if I was alone and not trying to push a stroller with Faith in it. Without an umbrella.

Thankfully it wasn't a heavy rain. I guess you could classify it as the typical dreary and wet day that London seemed to be notorious for. Still, we ended up somewhat wet and poor Faith had her feet and parts of her legs splattered with rain. I totally forgot about bringing along the rain cover for the stroller.

The reason why we still ventured out even though it was raining? We made a pact to meet Manisa and Saniya. Saniya's been eager to meet us and Faith ever since she was told that we would be in London. And I needed to replenish the woefully miserable vegetables that I'm left with for Faith's meals.

We took the Tube from Waterloo to Canary Wharf. It was a good trip. Faith had her morning nap and lunch, so she was in a fairly good mood to venture out with her mad mum. Even if it meant getting wet with the rain and all. She acquiesced to me taking a picture of her while waiting at the platform for the train. How could I resist? I needed to take a picture of Faith in the Tube, the quintessential mode of public transport in London :)

While waiting for Manisa and Saniya to arrive, we took more pictures. Being Faith's first time in London, she decided to consult the Tube map, as well as to check out TimeOut's brochure on the current summer activities that are ongoing all over the city. Hmmm.... looks like she's going to follow in the footsteps of her father, planning down to the minute details for all our overseas trip. Hahaha...

Deciding that she was bored after some time, she wanted to get off her stroller and walk around. I ended up chasing her around the station with the stroller, worried that she might wander too far away on her own and cry when she is confronted by the number of people going in and out of the station.

When Manisa and Saniya arrived, we headed to one of the malls connected to the station to take a look. Originally, we wanted to go to Vodafone to get me a pay-as-you-go SIM card. Somehow, there was a miscommunication and we ended up cancelling the line after we got it. For one reason or another, the staff cancelled Manisa's existing line instead of the new SIM. Sigh... She spent nearly an hour at the shop waiting for them to undo their mistakes.

While Manisa was waiting for the Vodafone staff to rectify the problem, Faith was squirming in her stroller. Ended up taking her out for a walk, with Saniya and myself trailing after her. Halfway through, afraid that Faith would be tired out and needed to head back for her milk and nap, I told Manisa that I would meet her at Waitrose so that I can quickly grab the few items that I didn't manage to do so the day before.


As usual, I let Faith out of her stroller to walk around as I browsed the aisles. Regrettably, my very mobile and somewhat independent toddler decided that she would like to grab, touch, pull and rearrange whatever items on the shelves that were within her reach. I ended up doing a 2-step dance of sorts -- looking for what I wanted, as well as keeping an eye on her from the side to make sure she didn't upend everything on the shelves onto the floor.

Amidst chastising her for her mischievous acts, I was also the proud mum -- my daughter is now able to trail and wobble behind me as I shop. Now that she's walking, there are times when its easier to bring her out. At least, she can be pacified and distracted by walking, instead of being confined to the stroller in the earlier days when she could only sit or crawl.

By the time I checked out my items, Manisa was done too. We decided to head to her home. Unfortunately, it was still raining. At this point, Faith decided that she didn't want to go back into her stroller. She bawled and scream and cried whenever I tried to put her in.

Finally, we decided that I would carry her in my arms while Manisa would push the stroller and help carry my purchases. Manisa had brought along 2 umbrellas. Since I didn't have one, she insisted that I took one, passed her remaining one to Saniya and she walked back the entire trip without one, getting her hair and clothes fairly drenched. I felt pretty bad about it, but Faith clamped herself tightly to me and wouldn't let go. Sigh..

After Faith napped and woke, Saniya and her played for a while. Faith took a while to get used to Saniya's enthusiasm though :) She cheered up considerably when her daddy arrived. We cooked Faith's porridge with Manisa's pressure cooker. After we were done, we headed out to Royal China for dinner.

Royal China is a Chinese restaurant that serves pretty good Chinese restaurant fare. It was Louis and my favourite Chinese place when we were there nearly 2 years ago. That time, Faith was with us too, but I was expecting her then. It would be so interesting to revisit some of these sights that we went when we were here last time. This time, with her in the picture :)

By the time we were done with dinner, it was past 10 pm and Faith was all tired out from the day's events as well as some remnants bit of jet lag. She fell asleep quickly on the short ride from the restaurant to the train station and remained in deep sleep all the way from the Tube ride to our hotel.

Through it all, the rain did not let up. It continued to fall in a slight but steady stream. What a thoroughly wet and dreary day.