As we walked through the streets of Switzerland, I decided to walk with Lucy and Elleã who were trailing at the back of the group. I waited for them to catch up with me and then walked beside Elleã and she immediately grabbed my hand and walked in between me and Lucy, occasionally swinging herself. I chatted to Lucy as Elleã was in her own world, as we walked very slowly behind everyone. Suddenly Charlie was beside us wanting Lucy to help her scare Millie and Rachel. Lucy looked over at me and then down at Elleã. "I'll take care of her", I told Lucy who replied "you sure?", "yeah, go ahead I've got her", I replied quickly. Lucy thanked me and headed off with Charlie. I looked down at the little toddler holding my hand and smiled.
When we were walking across a bridge, Elleã pulled on my hand and I looked down at her, she reached her hands up and said "up ?", I gently picked her up and then she pointed towards the water. I walked us over to the side of the bridge and held tightly onto her in my arms. She looked out over the bridge in awe. "What do ya think Effie ?", she looked back at me and then replied "pretty" in the cutest voice. I smiled and hugged her tight to my chest, as we both looked out over the bridge.
The moment reminded me of the first time Elleã had been in London and we had walked around the city and then looked over the River Thames. She had been only a few months old at the time and was tiny. I held her in my arms as we looked out over the bridge. That was the time I had come up with my nickname for her, Effie. I had come up with it with her name being Elleã Fae , Fae coming from Keira's middle name and I had just come up with on the spot. But it had remained my nickname for her ever since then. I smiled as I thought of it.
As we joined in the rest of the group, I decided it was best if I carried Elleã, because it would just be quicker. She was a very slow walker and everyone knew that, she had been a bit late learning how to walk, so she was still quite slow at walking and running. As I carried her, I fell into step with Lessi and Mary and started chatting to them. Elleã just cuddled in my arms looking around at everything. I quickly noticed people had stopped walking and were stood outside a cafe. We caught up with everyone and I turned to Ellen and asked "what's going on ?", "I think some people want an ice cream", she replied back smiling. On hearing the word ice cream Elleã popped her head up and look in between me and Ellen. "Lele, i want one", she said looking up at me with a cute puppy face, one she knew I couldn't resist. "Okay, let's see what flavours there have", I said, immediately accepting defeat and walking over to the front of the group, where I was met with Charlie pestering Lucy for an ice cream. Since I was getting one for Elleã I told Lucy, "I'll get one for you Charlie". Charlie jumped up and down and Lucy looked over at me and said "I'll give you money to pay for them", "nope, this one's on me", I said and then followed Charlie into the cafe not letting Lucy argue back. I headed over to Charlie who was looking at all the flavours and then turned to Elleã and said "there's strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, mint or cookie dough", she quickly chose strawberry, of course. A staff member came over to us and I asked for a baby scoop of strawberry and then Charlie politely asked for a cookie dough scoop in a cone. The staff member quickly got the ice creams for us and then I went to pay. As I was paying a few of the team came into the cafe and ordered ice creams. When we all got our ice creams we headed to a park and sat on the grass, eating our ice creams. I held Elleã in my lap and watched carefully as she ate her ice cream. I then saw Alex snap a photo of Elleã and quickly asked her to send it to me, which she of course did. I decided to put it up on my Instagram
leahwilliamson Zurich, Switzerland 📍
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leahwilliamson; definitely not sharing 🥺 @lucybronze, @keirawalsh
Once Elleã had finished her ice cream, I grabbed a spare tissue from Keira and wiped her face and fingers. She then crawled back into my lap and lay her head against my chest, clearly tired. Once everyone was finished we all decided it was best to go back to the hotel. I carefully got up and repositioned Elleã in my arms. She grabbed onto my hoodie and cuddled into me even more. We all walked back to the hotel and I walked with Keira and we quietly chatted. Once back at the hotel, some people grabbed a small bite to eat while me, Keira, Charlie, Lucy and Georgia headed to our rooms, I gently lay Elleã down in the middle of the double bed and gave her a gentle kiss to her head as I took of her shoes and Lucy passed me her pj's. With Lucy's help we got Elleã changed without waking her and then I leaned down and whispered, "night night, Effie, I love you" and then gave her another kiss and quietly said goodnight to Charlie, who had gotten into her pj's and was laying in the single bed in the room and then said goodnight to Lucy and Keira and headed out of the room with G.
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Tried something different this time, so a shorter chapter this time. Let me know if you want more chapters like this one.
