28 June 2009

We had planned a day out at the seaside, on the Shonan coast around the historical mecca, Kamakura. As on previous occasions, we eschewed the area's many historical and cultural attractions and hopped on the quaint coast-hugging railway a few stops further, alighting at Inamuragasaki. As we travelled there it came on to rain. The forecast had been for cloud then sunshine in the afternoon, so we were woefully unprepared for the heavy and continuous downpour that lasted for the whole of our day out.

Emily had been awake since six, so by the time we got there she was already flagging. We joined a small queue outside the first decent-looking restaurant, which called itself an Italian taverna. It filled up rapidly so we quickly got our order in. Not fast enough to prevent Emily from getting upset though. We had to placate her with fruit and when the food did come she would only eat some bread and a few bits of pumpkin. It was a fairly up-market place and we didn't do it justice as we had to rush the meal.

Afterwards Emily was very obviously in need of sleep, so we walked her back and forth along the coastside pavement for an hour, struggling to steer the buggy with one hand while holding a brolly against the deluge in the other. On her waking, we went straight down to the beach. We found welcome shelter in a foot tunnel under the road, and used it to change into our swimming gear. I went in first, and found the water to be quite comfortable (maybe becasue there was not such a sharp contrast between air and water temperature?). I have always liked swimming in the rain too. In the end I stayed in for about quarter of an hour, before reluctantly getting out so that Nick could have a go while I played with Emily in the driving rain. She was having fun until Nick took her into the sea. She soon got goosebumps when they came out after the briefest of dunkings, and her feet turned alarmingly purple.

Once towelled off and in dry clothes she recovered, but by then we had to bundle her back into the stroller to walk on to Hase, 20 minutes round the coast. We knew exactly where we wanted to go: Cafe ChaCa, near the famous giant Buddha and Hasedera temple. We had been there twice before and love their waffles. After replenishing ourselves there we turned for home. Emily was very bright on the train, but a bit of a handful. At the moment she loves saying 'Mummy eye', 'Daddy noshe', 'Emily ear' etc.

Finally, the rain let up in the evening, just as I set off for my first run in three weeks. As I expected, it was awful, but at least conditions were lovely as there was a cool breeze. I made myself go for 40 minutes, but it was such a plod.