Half Pint Pixie

We’re back home again and utterly exhausted, but an exceedingly good time was had by all!

Meeting Isil & Defne:

It was lovely to meet dear Isil and Defne in real life after chatting online for the last few months! Defne is so cute. We had lunch in Wagamamas and then walked all over London while chatting. We stopped for a delicious treat, vegan mango ice-cream in Neal’s Yard while Mr. HPP took littlepixie for a run around Covent Garden to blow off some steam! Later, Isil got to see first hand how loud Littlepixie can scream when tired and resisting sleep, and I discovered that littlepixie had just cut tooth #4, poor thing. Once she fell asleep, peace was restored and we walked some more, a lovely relaxing day amid the bustle of London, thanks Isil

We met up with Mr. HPP after Isil & Defne headed home and we foolishly traveled back to hotel in the middle of Tube rush hour madness, silly tourists that we were!

Travel:

Littlepixie was none too fond of the first plane flight, there was quite a bit of theatrical crying and wailing! The flight home was much better, she quickly worked out that milkies fixed her popping ears so every time the pressure changed she would turn around and have a quick suck. And then she slept for most of the flight.

Arriving back in Dublin, we had a momentary panic as the luggage people informed us that our luggage had blown into a fuel tank, but happily neither luggage nor fuel tank were damaged/destroyed or blown up. Apart from a few raindrops, all our bags eventually reached the luggage carousel safe and sound!

A handy tip: As littlepixie was sitting on my lap, she had no luggage allowance, only a stroller. We bought a Maclaren stroller carrybag a few weeks ago and along with the stroller snuck a pack of nappies and extra baby stuff into the bag. Very useful, seen as our bags were quite full and not very light!

My Rockin’ Baby ring sling certainly earned its keep on this trip. It was perfect for the little uppy-downy antics of an excited travelling littlepixie and absolutely essential for the Tube. She even napped in it in the airport.

The pockets on the sling were perfect for transporting dollies, teething rings and raisins.

We used the stroller for day time walks and naps (some of which took place in the snow!!). The Tettitett was very handy for naps while strolling around London. And we also brought a set of little baby reins along so that she could run wild but not too wild!

Littlepixie settled into all 4 hotels nicely, Mr. HPP is now absolutely fed up of dismantling hotel beds to create a family bed from the mattress on the ground! But it was well worth it as Littlepixie managed to crawl out of bed while asleep a couple of times, so we were glad we were on the floor. Thank you big strong Mr. HPP for making our family-bed-away-from-home every night!

Conventions:

We had a great time at Orbital & P-Con. The hotel that Orbital was on in, the Radisson Edwardian, is huge, it’s like a massive twisty labyrinth, a fact which prompted some quick witted person to put signs up on random corridors and stairwells which read “Minotaur ->”, very funny!

I had a splendid time, I went to no panels but every afternoon I took 2 hours off to read my book with a little glass of red wine or beer and a big bowl of chips. It was so lovely, Mr HPP & Littlepixie would spend the time exploring the hotel, yes, 2 hours of exploring, it really was that big! I finished “The Martian Chronicles” which was excellent, and also read “The Other Boleyn Girl“, which was entertaining and not too taxing on the brain! It’s been so long since I’ve gotten such quality book reading time, it was lovely!

Mr. HPP went to a lot of panels and had a great time at the night events, so it worked out well. The hotel bar stocked non-alcoholic beer, which was meant we could look like such irresponsible parents knocking back glasses of beer while we danced along to alien bands with Littlepixie!

Food:

The Radisson was great, the Orbital guys had arranged a nightly buffet, and there was a vegan dish available at it. Really yummy too, curries, bean stews that type of thing. Every morning there was soya milk available at the breakfast buffet, which we are taking the credit for as we wrote and asked them to do that. It’s possible they always do it, but we’re still taking the credit! The staff were happy to do steamed veg for littlepixie too as she’s still going through her brocolli & cauliflower phase, long may it last!

In London we scoffed food in Wagamama (yum as always), Yo Sushi (I could eat kappa maki all day long, although they no longer have inari ), Tai Vegan Buffet (greasy but yummy) and surprisingly Starbucks supplied us with a nice treat, a vegan falafel & hummus wrap which went down a treat with some soy cappuchinos. Might I just say that Starbuck’s cups are way too big, no-one needs that much coffee!

Shopping:

Mr. HPP stocked up on some more books and magazines at Orbital, but other than that we didn’t partake of much shopping.

I got a few Dairy-Free choccie bars in Sainsburys (the same as the buttons I found here, but in their yucky yellow “Free-From” wrapping) & found some Pocari Sweat in the Japan Centre on Piccadilly Circus, woo hoo!

Back Home:

Currently doing many loads of laundry and catching up on my internetting. My poor blog reader has over a hundred unread posts that it wants me to read!

Littlepixie picked up a little cold on the plane home, has gone off her solids (except avocados & broccoli) and is now back breastfeeding non-stop, she was quite sick on Saturday in Dublin so we had a snuggle-in-bed day, but she’s on the mend now, so all is well