Met up with Syl and her dearie and Val and her very 'yen-dao' boy today. Not only was I very proud of my girls who behaved very well, I was proud of myself too. Why? All because I brought them to London myself and without a stroller. I wouldn't have dreamt about bringing the girls on a day trip to London without one before. But after much thoughts, I'd rather not lug it along and carry it up and down the many stairs at the tube stations, in and out of buses and push it through the crowds on the streets. I had prep-talked Lavigne days before that Danielle and Luke (same age as her) don't sit in one. This morning, she told me she didn't want me to bring the stroller along.
My bag was filled with a story book for each of them (they chose it themselves), notebooks for them to doodle, a pack of snap cards and of course the essential 'emergency kit' - snacks! As always, they were very excited about the train ride which took about 40 minutes. The ride there was rather uneventful, which was good! Upon reaching London Waterloo, Louisa asked, 'Do we have to go to the toilet now?' I asked why. She said because we're at the loo, London Waterloo. Haha! I'd never thought of that before. Kids!
I was still worried about Lavigne, whether she'd start to act up and complain about being tired and wanting to be carried. Anyhow, we proceeded to Picadilly Circus to shop at 
Japan Centre. We met Syl and Danielle there and walked around abit before Syl brought the girls downstairs to look at some children books. It was my first visit to the store and I'd wanted to go there mainly because of Daiso which was located within the shop. Actually, it was more like a few shelves of Daiso products and I was quite disappointed with the range of products they have, or rather the lack of it. In the end, I bought only foodstuff.
After Japan Centre, we walked about a little searching for Paperchase. I needed to return a notebook I'd bought last Saturday as I found something better (this is what I like about shopping here, buy-first-change-mind-return). I remembered wrongly that there's a branch in Picadilly, asked several people who didn't know about the store at all. So we gave up and bought the girls some food to eat on the bus to Kensington where we were to meet Val and Luke at the tearoom, Muffin Man. I'd read about Syl's visits to several tearooms. Finally! I had the chance to join them. Syl ordered carrot cake (soft and nice) while I had coffee and walnut cake (a little dry to my liking but overall not bad). While us mummies chatted between sips of tea, the little ones drew (Syl, thanks for bringing a whole set of colour pencils) and played 'I spy'. We left the tearoom before the kiddies became too restless. We can talk and talk but there's only that much they could draw :p.
So we proceeded to the nearby Holland Park. I just realised that the park has several lovely gardens which, sadly, we didn't venture to.
We couldn't believe how nice the weather was. Everyone was out in force and when we passed by Green Park earlier, I saw that the lawn was covered with many people.
Our kids played at the playground while we sat and (what else) did more catching up.
Once again, we lamented about us not living close to one another. Nonetheless, we shall by going to Val's place on Saturday and the ladies are coming over to mine next week (let us have nice weather please, we want to have a picnic). We are not perturbed by the distance. No, no!
I had planned to leave London at 4.50pm before the office crowd started building up. I didn't realise it was so late when Adrian rang me at 4.30pm. In the end, I decided to go home later. After the park, we walked to Whole Foods Market - a very posh supermarket (Kensington, but of course!). The products that they carry are very interesting but inflated in price too. We had to stop our kids from touching this and that. There was this big wagon full of eggs and I asked Lavigne not to touch it. She was drinking water from her water bottle, looked at me and then touched the eggs. I nearly had a heart attack! The eggs moved but thank God none broke. There was this wide selection of chocolates and a sample plate. We nearly finished all by taking a piece each.
By the time we left the store, Lavigne was getting grouchy. She was tired and wanted to be carried. There was no way I could carry her when I had one big bag, another bag of shopping and I also had to hold Louisa's hand. So I told her if she walked to the bus-stop and when we reached Chinatown (to buy some Chinese buns), she'd get to pick a packet drink. She agreed. Phew! Val went home and Syl kindly accompanied me to Leicester Square. I thought Lavigne would fall asleep on the bus but she kept talking and only when we were going to reach our destination did her eyelids start to droop. I tried all means to keep her awake and then she perked up when she saw the gigantic lions at Trafalgar Square. We took some pictures and reached Chinatown (she moaned and protested along the way but I reminded her of her reward).
After buns, drinks and a highly recommended bottle of chilli oil were bought, we took the tube to London Waterloo to catch our train. After bidding our farewells to Syl and Danielle, we managed to catch a fast train home which was leaving in less than 10min. We were lucky to get seats and I was sure Lavigne would sleep this time. It must be the juice she drank (sugar rush), she talked alot again and the passengers around her were very amused with her. Adrian picked us up from the train station and she was still very alert (better than Duracell batteries) until we reached home. The girls had a quick wash and went to bed, falling asleep in no time.
I was exhausted but very pleased. I survived the trip. Lavigne wasn't carried at all. Louisa behaved like a big sister throughout. There wasn't any temper tantrums and we all enjoyed ourselves which was more important than anything else.
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