Hello all,

Here is to bring to your notice that the Season 1 of the show will come to an end this week after the week's usual updates. Season 2 will commence after the holidays and it promises to be sizzling hot.

More info will be communicated as at when due.

Thanks.


[size=18pt]MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL[/size]

MEET THE NAIJAFOLKS coming up later tonight.

KEEPING UP WITH SIENAS

29:11:2012:

It's 11:00 when Mrs. Siena informs me she has to go into London to shop. Can I work from home today, so I can look after the girls? This doesn't suit my plans at all, and I decline.

Mrs. Siena gives me her little-girl-lost look that usually works, but not today.

"Please?"

I think of the work I have been stacking up, which I don't want to carry over.

"Sorry hon, not today. It's way too short notice. Besides, what's wrong with taking the kids with you?"

Mrs. Siena gapes at me.

"Go on the trains with Sachi and her buggy, with Sienna in tow? You know how hard it is to control her in busy places!"

She's right, of course. But she should have known she was going into London today, and given more notice. I don't like surprises being sprung upon me at the last minute. I think fast, and come up with an idea that could work.

"Have you thought about calling Margaret, and asking if she'd have her for the day? It's been quite a while she's seen Sienna, I'm sure she'll be glad to help."

Margaret is Sienna's Godmother, and really good with her. And Sienna gets on with her. Mrs. Siena brightens.

"I'll give her a call. Do you think she'll have her at such short notice?"

I laugh.

"Well, you thought nothing about me dropping everything at short notice did you?" My voice is heavily laced with sarcasm.

Mrs. Siena says nothing, she's dialling a number, and she waves me to silence as the call is connected. She has a rapid exchange with the other party. I stand by, rattling my keys impatiently. I just want to get moving.

A minute later, Mrs. Siena puts the phone back on its dock, and claps her hands.

"She can have her. That's a relief. Can you drop her off? Margaret will bring her back in the evening."

Margaret lives in Rendlesham, and dropping Sienna would mean going out of my way, but it's a better option than having Sienna with me all day, whilst I'm working. I nod.

"Sure, as long as you can get her ready in the next 10 minutes. I'm running late as it is."

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I have dropped Sienna at her Godmother's, it was good to see her. She's 70-years-old, and has never had kids of her own. we do worry about her living on her own, we used to see her almost daily when we lived in Rendlesham. Not so easy since we've moved. Still, she's a very independent lady, and despite her age, very active and trendy. I sometimes forget she's 70.

It's way into the day, when I get a call from an unknown number, with an 0845 prefix. I don't recognise the number, and as I'm on the road, I let it ring. If it's important, whoever it is will call again. From experience, 0845 numbers are sales calls, and I don't like cold callers. So, they can wait.

I'm not far from my workshop, when my phone rings once more, I check my display, it's the same number, and I frown. Usually sales callers don't call so close to a previous call (it's only 6 minutes since the last). I hit the receive button, prepared to give the caller a piece of my mind, and I'm far from friendly.

"Yes? Who's this?"

There's a long pause, and I'm just about to speak once more, when there's a female response.

"Good afternoon, may I speak to Sinner?"

There's nothing that pisses me off more than my name being mispronounced, especially as my name is pretty simple. I respond aggressively.

"Oh yeah? And who the heck want's to know?"

"My name's Morton, I'm calling from ****** Finance. May I verify I'm speaking to Sinner?

By now, I'm really pissed.

"Look here, Mor0n. The name's Siena. I'll spell it out, so even a Moronic Chimp can get it straight. S-I-E-N-A. What do you wish to speak to me about?"

I hear a sharp intake of breath, and I grin to myself. At least it's gotten to her. She responds once more, and I can almost feel her nice Customer Service cloak slipping of. Her tone is frosty.

"If you could confirm I'm speaking to Siena, we can continue."

By now, I've had enough. Her smug, self-important tones jar me.

"Morton, what else do you wish to know? I've already confirmed I'm Siena, I even spelt it out to you. I tell you what - I'm signing off here, when your manners have improved, call me back. If not, bugger off! I'm not in any mood to be patronised by a self-important, jumped-up Jobsworth!"

And before she can respond, I hang up. I sit waiting for the phone to ring again, but it doesn't. I get out of my car, and as I'm heading for the side door to my garage, the owner of the unit next to mine comes hurrying over. He waves to me, and I pause.

"Hello mate. I received a delivery for you, do you want to sort it out now, or later?"

I shook hands with him.

"Depends on how much there is. Are you pressed for space?"

He picks at his nose as he thinks, and I look away. I wonder idly if he's just picked his nose with the hand I'd shaken earlier, and make a mental note to wash my hands, as soon as I get inside. He grins widely.

"I suppose not. And yeah, there's quite a lot of it."

I know what the delivery is, it'll be heavy too. I can sort that out tomorrow. I tell him I'll get some help, and unload tomorrow. His grin widens.

"That's okay. I'm going to be in late tomorrow, but my boy will be here to help. If you can sort him out..."

He lets his words hang, but I understand what he means alright. And I don't begrudge what I'll give him for his help.I slap him on the shoulder.

"Thanks buddy, I owe you one."

I chew the fat with him for a couple of minutes, then manage to get away without shaking his hand again. I'm relieved - he's a nice guy, but he'll talk for hours given half the chance, and I've got nothing in common with him really. All he goes on about is the pub, football, placing bets on horses that always seem to lose, and Friday nights.

I'm just about to use the little restroom attached to my garage, when my phone rings again. I don't need to look to confirm who it is, it's ****** Finance. I'm determined to wash my hands, and the phone stops ringing. Just as I settle down at the work bench, my phone rings again, and I snatch it up without looking at it.

"Yeah? What the heck do you want? I'm busy!"

There's silence, then Mrs. Siena responds in shocked tones.

"Sweetie, I didn't mean to disturb you, I just wanted to let you know, I've just gotten to London Liverpool Street. I'm sorry I called now."

My bad mood slips away, and I respond sheepishly.

"Sorry hon, I didn't mean to snap at you, it's been one of those days. I've had sales calls all day, I thought they were calling back."

"Well, I'm relieved, I almost dropped my phone when you yelled at me. Sachi's asleep, I've just strapped her into her buggy. Did you and Sienna get off to Margaret's okay?"

I sit on the edge of the work bench, and push a box of parts towards the wall.

"Yeah. She's fine, just looked a bit tired. I did feel guilty dropping Sienna on her at such short notice, and said so. She just laughed, and said it was okay. She's getting her back around 18:00. What time are you getting back? Do you need a lift from the train station?"

"I'll be back around the same time as Sienna. Don't bother rushing to pick me up, I'll just grab a taxi."

"Well, if you're sure......"

Mrs. Siena laughs.

"Positive. And there's something I was going to tell you before I left home. I might as well tell you now. Promise you won't get upset?"

I stiffen.

"What is it?"

There's nothing but sounds from a noisy train station from the other end.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

More noise. I'm just about to hang up, and call Mrs. Sienna back, when she answers.

"Promise you won't get upset?"

I'm starting to get worried now.

"How can I promise, when I don't know what it is? Just tell me!"

"I love you."

I'm not sure I've heard right.

"What was that?"

"I love you."

"Yeah, I heard that, but what's the rest?"

Mrs. Siena chuckles. She seems pretty amused.

"Does there need to be any more? Do I need a reason to tell my Deltan King I love him?"

I laugh aloud. I'm usually the practical joker, I've gotten her really worried about nothing, several times when I call her, and in sombre tones, tell her we need to talk. She falls for it everytime. I guess this is payback.

"I guess not. I love you too. What do you fancy for supper? because I'll be home way before you."

"I don't know. Surprise me with one of your tasty concoctions."

I laugh.

"Okay, I will. I'll pick up a bottle of Baileys too. It's on sale, as Christmas draws near. So £9.99 instead of the usual £15.99."

"Sounds good. I've got to go, I'll see you guys later. Love you."

"Love you too."

I hang up.
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SEASON TWO BEGINS WITH THE NAIJA FOLKS

Enjoy!!!

Episode 1

NAIJA HERE WE COME

The build-up to our naija trip reached fever pitch on 19th of Dec; the kids were super excited and I simply could not wait to get the heck out of the notorious Aberdeen freeze. It was mild for that time of the year but I was prepared to allow myself some exaggeration because I was headed for 30+ deg C temperatures.

I woke on the morning of the 20th at 3.30am wishing I could sleep for another 10 hours because I went to bed at half past midnight, I had already checked in online but still wasn’t prepared to take chances; heaven knew I was still pretty traumatised by the last fiasco.
We were ready within an hour and our taxi was already waiting outside but as we made our way down the stairs Babette looked at me funnily.

‘’I think I am going to be sick Mummy’’

‘’Uh oh!!! Let’s go to the toilet then’’

Baby was already downstairs and I could hear him pulling on one of the luggage. I certainly could do without her nausea but I put it down to excitement. I opened the door for the taxi driver and wheeled the bags to the entrance so he could put them in the car while I tended to her. About 10 minutes later we were set on our way to the airport.

They were both very chatty in the car and no one would believe that Babette was vomiting a few minutes earlier, for once I was glad to be answering questions like why the moon was following our car.

Aberdeen airport was crazy, it seemed everybody had decided to leave town that day and boy was I glad I had checked in online!!! Got the bags tagged within 15 minutes and headed for the departure lounge, the long queue at security left us hardly any time to hang about in the lounge so we headed straight for boarding.

We got to Amsterdam around 8.15am local time which meant we had about 4hours to spare at Schipol airport. I have to admit, Schiphol airport is one of my favourite airports, it’s huge and there’s a lot you can do to while away time especially if you are travelling with children. Charles De Gaulle on the other hand is an absolute shit of an airport and I like to avoid it when I can. We headed for the lounge, I could do with putting my feet up, getting a snooze would be pushing it but I could use the wifi in there for the Ipad to keep my kiddos entertained while I got some peace.

The 4 hour wait went by as expected, at snail pace; the kids fought over the Ipad, Babette wanted to watch her usual Barbie movies while Baby was adamant on Thomas the Tank engine and Super Why. In the end I ended up connecting my Note to the network and gave that to Babette because Baby wouldn’t let go of the Ipad.

As we waited at the gate to board the AMS-LOS plane, I couldn’t help but be mesmerised by the sheer crowd. Nigerians love to go home at Christmas, abeg!!! It was obvious the plane would be packed. A few minutes before boarding, announcements about hand luggages being no more than two rented the air, I couldn’t help laughing. I don’t know why Nigerians are obsessed with carrying so much. There was a family of six waiting beside us; the father was grumpy while the mother was trying to ensure each of them had no more than the allowed limit. I could not help but wonder why they still had so many pieces; they would have been allowed 2 pieces at 23kg per person. Why they still had so much beat me.

As we got on the plane and I settled my kiddos, K, Babette’s friend that lives at B-town walked in with her parents and her sister. I knew they were going to be on the flight but wanted Babette to be surprised. We were all merrily chatting away when Olusegun Obasanja walked in, it was the first time I was seeing the man in the flesh and contrary to what one would expect of a man of his stature, he had no airs around him. He chatted freely with the middle aged man dressed in an Ankara buba /sokoto despite the Dutch freeze who sat beside him. My friend and I joked about how much a picture with the old man would be worth and how much contract it could get you in Nigeria as the journey progressed. When I told Naijaman about it, he said I should have taken a picture with him (my hubby likes Obj, while my own affection for the man has gone from loathsomeness to indifference).

We arrived in Lagos around 7.30pm, the usual rush to get out ASAP started with gusto. I have never really understood why folks are always in a rush to get out of a plane they’d been on for hours?! What would another few minutes do? Besides, we were all going out to wait for our luggage, so the purpose of that rush always appear to be defeated to me. During the wait to disembark, Baba started chatting with children, he was quite in his elements with them as he was so grandfatherly which kind of surprised me. I guess his reputation preceded him in my eyes, after all the man is a grandfather himself.

When we finally got out, the naijapali queue was super long as was expected while the non-naijapali was not any better. Trolley was now 500 naira, I don’t know why but paying for a trolley always annoys me at MMIA and that day was no different. I paid with reluctance like I always did and got my last surprise for the day as I picked up our luggage. One of the bags looked wet from about half a feet away and I smelled the alcohol as soon as I hauled it on the trolley; I always buy a few bottles of wine and cocktail mixers when I go to naija. For the last few years, I only ever find South African wines which for some reason I can’t get my palate to agree with. I’d drink wine from anywhere but SA, maybe I am yet to find a good one sha. So, as I was saying o jare, when I was packing, I thought I had some bubble wrap at home but apparently didn’t and it was too late when I found out so I used our clothes as some sort of wrap for the wines. Lo and behold! One of them had broken in the bag but I thanked my lucky stars that it was one of the whites.

My brother –in-law picked us up at the airport because naijaman was not due to arrive until Saturday and we had arranged that the Ijebu folks would come and get us at my sister’s after picking him up. Baby was initially spooked by the blaring horns but became pretty excited by it after he got used to the noise, he copied each blare with his mouth and kept saying the cars were elves (The blaring noise sounded similar to the horn of the elves in Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom).

We got to my sister’s house to be greeted by excited nieces and nephew, Baby became an instant star because everything he did and said was funny. Babette on the other hand was happy to discover that her cousins had Ice Age 4 on DVD while my sister and I ‘gisted’ till dawn. Her hubby said he couldn’t understand what we were talking about since we talked regularly anyway, although there’s an age gap of 10 years between us, my sister and I are very close, I can’t even recall most of what we talked about.

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II

The next day, Baby continued his job of entertaining everyone but I wasn’t very amused as I was pretty used to his special brand of comedy although he’s admittedly funnier than most 3 years old I have met. He was playing outside with his nieces while I chose to catch up with all the sleep I missed gisting with my sister. When I woke up later in the afternoon, I decided on a Buka lunch, (whenever I am in Nigeria, I always eat Buka food in the afternoon except when I can’t help it). The choice that afternoon was Amala, nicely drowned with Abula and goat meat. I always return to the UK about half a stone heavier but who cares, I was on holiday! What better time to feed my gluttony, right?!
Baby’s act for the afternoon for his audience was to dig the sandy part of the lawn. He then collected all the little stones he found and put them on the floor of the living room. My sister was the first to discover the stones.
‘’ Who put this rubbish here?’’ she apparently screamed in Yoruba (she had used the word panti). My kids understand Yoruba pretty well as that’s what we speak at home.
‘’ It’s not panti, they are my rocks, I want to get the gold before Captain Hook’’ he pronounced the letter P as one would say in Peter.

My sister burst out laughing and of course not knowing who Captain Hook was but asked him if he’d hide the rocks outside. Heagreed and put the stones outside but having not found any gold, he got disappointed and decided on having a bath. So, he took a big hand wash basin (the type that Yoruba people call baff) and put it at the tap outside like someone about to fetch water, sat inside and opened the tap on himself. Everyone was laughing at him but he continued with his business and even said cheese in a very serious manner when pictures of him were being taken.
The next day naijaman joined us and as expected, the kids were over the moon to see him (I never tell them the exact day he’s coming, unless Babette has counted herself which she does sometimes). We headed for IJ or Ijebu-ode in the afternoon in the car sourced by Oga Fhemmy of the Auto section.

I had to go back to Lagos the next day to see my parents, one of my brothers also had a lil’ shindig, although he said it was special prayers. As far as I was concerned, it was another Owambe o jare. As soon as we got there, Babette excitedly went off with her cousins while Baby for some reason started chasing after a dog. I was worried that the dog would bite him and tried to hold on tightly to him, but he was having none of that, eventually tired of his whining I let him go only to spot him a few minutes later walk into the dog’s kennel. He was about to sit down in it when I screamed at him to come out at the top of my voice. Sulking, he walked up to me and told me I was not his friend. I could live with that.

Before we left Abbzy town, the death of Grandma Betty O, naijaman’s stepmom was announced on the 6th of Dec, her funeral therefore became a big shindig for the Os and the Os family liked to party. As I had not seen Sister N nor spoken to her since her mum’s death, I decided to stop there after leaving my brother’s place before heading back to IJ. She was on her way to church to check out the choir’s rehearsal session when we arrived (Sister N is very meticulous and thorough, I was not the least bit surprised that she was going to do that). In the end, she didn’t return until I left around 7pm. I was determined to return to IJ the same day.
Thanks to Oga Fhemmy, doing IJ to Lagos every day before the burial was not so bad, the section called Long bridge just after Redeemed on Lagos-Ibadan expressway gave me plenty more reasons to be grateful to him because there was an accident there every day we drove past; using public transport on that road at that time appeared like suicide mission to me.

I had plans to meet two NLders and had invited them both to the funeral; one could not make it because their family was going to be out of town from the 26th and the other had some issues last minute which made it impossible for them to come.

We left IJ on the morning of the 27th, the day of the wake for Lagos around noon. We had originally all planned to stay at the Ikeja Palace Hotel because my MIL know the owners and we could have stayed there for free but my overly posh brother-in-law got there first and declared that we could not stay there. He went instead to the Grand Bee and made reservation for all of us before calling naijaman to tell him the change in plans. At 30k a night, I was expecting some swanky hotel but was disappointed to find a hotel no better than a Premier Inn with a swimming pool. This was one of the things that annoyed me about Nigeria; the quality of what you get is never commensurate with the cost.

The wake was held at a catholic church at Ikeja not far from our hotel, the ‘omo olokus’ and grandkids had to wear aso ebi. The men of the ‘O’ family for some odd reason do not wear lace, every single one of them that I have met hate lace, so it was hardly a surprise that Sister N chose a white cotton material that I don’t know its name for them while we the women wore lace buba, velvet wrapper with a different material as gele, all in different shades of green. The male grandkids strangely enough all wore a white lace and the girls wore green lace. Being Baby’s first Buba and Sokoto, he kept calling the clothes his white doctor clothes. The funeral service followed on the 28th first with a lying in state session at her Ikeja residence; she looked like she was sleeping with a smile on her face. Everybody was crying when it was time for the coffin to be closed and transported to the church. It seemed all of the extended family had turned up for the session but Sister N’s arrangement of two buses to transport folks from the house to the church turned out very handy.

The church service was a very good one, it was my first time at a catholic service and I have to say both they and their protestant counterparts do better when it comes to sermons than their Pentecostal brethren but that’s just my opinion. We were again in Aso ebi, this time white lace buba, blue velvet wrappers and aso-oke geles. The men wore another white cotton buba and sokoto with aso oke agbada and fila. The grandkids were all wearing blue lace; of course this was Baby’s blue doctor clothes. The extended family members and well-wishers wore blue Ankara all round, the ensemble completed with plain dark blue aso oke fila for the men and red geles for the women.

Service over, we headed for Ikoyi Vaults and Gardens where she was interred, everybody was crying again as we did the rituals, I was confronted with my own mortality in a sense but I guess that’s what funerals do to sane people or so I hope sha. There were some men at the cemetery who suddenly turn praise singers as soon as we finished. I initially thought someone had arranged for them only to discover that it was their day job to accost the deceased’s family members with aggressive praise singing for money. I was too disgusted to want to give them anything and I didn’t. The sight of able bodied men begging just irritates the hell out of me. Mission finally completed, it was time to party!!! We changed to the same Ankara as the others at the reception held at the Havilah Event Centre at Oniru Road. The party as expected was a big hit, the ‘O’ family like I said before love their parties and they are good party planners. Sister N in the heat of the party at some point while dancing with her numerous family members proclaimed that it’s great to be an O……………………. I laughed so much I had tears in my eyes. Betty O died at the ripe age of 77; she was buried with much pomp and ceremony. She was an excellent mother, wife and grandmother and duly deserved all the honour and pageantry that accompanied her burial.
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We had a family meeting at my dad’s the day after the burial so I decided to spend the night at my sister’s; it was one time I didn’t want to do the mad dash back to IJ. My family is weird in a good way, there are 3 women and 6men i.e my parents have 9 kids between them; we are all very close to each other and are often uncharacteristically candid with one another too including our parents. My dad is an only child and treats us like we are his siblings most of the time which is great. My sister, the oldest is a Christian (her hubby is a pastor too), the rest are Muslims (the ahlus- Sunnah type) and I am the faithless renegade. Despite the bizarreness of our individual beliefs, there hasn’t been any damage done to our relationship with each other. Our meeting lasted till around 6pm, thankfully enough, I was not going back to IJ.
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To be contd.

Episode 2

OLOTIS (Drunkard)

It was my birthday on Dec 31, naijaman came to pick us up at my sister’s, and we were going to see one of his older siblings on the Island. When we got there, his wife Sister T met me with birthday greeting and I was surprised she knew my birthday, turned out one of her sons shares my birthday. I was treated to a hearty birthday lunch and a bottle of champagne opened just for me, Sister T however insisted on us taking the half-drunk bottle with us. We decided to return to IJ via Lekki and I allowed myself the luxury of dozing since the kids were in lala land too. Naijaman saw some palmwine sellers on the way and asked if I wanted some, as I don’t joke with palmy, we bought a 5-litre bottle of the good white stuff, it was the real deal and I could not wait to get home to do some justice to it.

Naijaman has a very small and closely knit circle of friends, they all went to secondary school together and remain good friends, nicely enough the wives got along pretty well too. A big party on New Year eve is the family tradition of the B family (one of the B’s is in naijaman’s circle) while the On’s (another friend) have theirs on the 1st of January. So we went straight to their family house with the kids in tow. Babette must have drunk enough Fanta to drown a human while Baby kept asking for ‘Batina’ (that’sMaltina for the uninitiated), and B gave me small bottle of Baileys to drink alone because it is apparently a woman’s drink. So much alcohol in one day, naijaman man and I drank a bottle of white wine along with the champagne at his brother’s, I tasted the palmwine with a big cup and then got handed a bottle of Baileys to drink by myself, may God save my liver I muttered to myself before I started doing justice to it. The music was loud enough to cause deafness but hey! ‘’Odun lo de ta nse (it’s festive period)’’ so the saying goes. As we got there pretty late, most people had left but I told Naijaman to call Mr Og (another member of the circle) and his wife to come back. Mrs Og, B’s wife and I engaged in harmless gossip, the kids ran around while the men drank and engaged in their usual banter where they mostly insult each other. At 9.30pm Mrs Og started talking about the watch night service and wanted us to go early. Being one of those spiricoco folks, she wanted to go to Winners, B’s wife wanted to go to the Anglican Church while I could not be a/rsed either way. We ended up at Winners where a live a feed from Canaan land was projected on a big screen. If I knew we were coming to watch television, I’d have gone home to sleep. A few minutes to midnight, the able bishop revealed 2013 to be a year of double portion; shouts of double portion rented the air from that point onwards. After the service, we dropped our respective kids at home and hung out at Grand lnn & Suites bar till around 3.30am. I chose to drink just water by this point, make dem no kee me for my pikins!!!
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Naijaman is not much of a sleeper; naijababe on the other hand could sleep for days given half a chance. It was therefore not a surprise when I woke up on 01 Jan to find the space beside me empty, it was well past noon. I went downstairs to find Naijaman, posh brother-in-law, their mum, the kids and Mr On at the dining table. Baby had a bowl of Milo flakes in front of him, while Babette ate Weetabix, the men ate bread and stew chatted with their mum. Mr On came to get some ice for the drinks and drank what was left of my Baileys while at it (it’d be so bloody hard if one was trying to get off the wagon among these people, I thought to myself). I had a small bowl of oats for brunch and sat in front of the TV watching Yoruba movies until it was time to go to the party of the day.

I took a bottle each of white wine and peach schnapps with me to Mr On’s party, the white wine got waylaid by Mr On’s older brother almost immediately, naijaman and I both ate pounded yam and efo while the kids opted for a mixture of jollof & fried rice. Half way through the meal, Baby asked for some blue rice instead because blue is his favourite colour. Senior Mr On’s wife replied him in ijebu
‘’Shin ma gberibulu rice? naijaman, omo we fe je bulu rice o’’ (Where will I see blue rice? Naijaman, your kid wants blue rice o)

‘’What did you say to me?’’ Baby asked

obviously not understanding her Ijebu Yoruba.
I almost fell off my chair laughing as I watched the exchange. A little while later, Mr On took us to show us his mum’s fish pond at the back of the house. Knowing my kids, especially Baby, I knew I had to keep a closer eye on them as he’d probably think it was a good idea to swim with the fingerlings. By the time we got back to the party, most of the circle friends that were in town had arrived, Mrs Og and I continued from where we left off the previous night, I convinced her to taste some punch I made from the peach schnapps and some juice, she finished a glass too quickly for someone initially reluctant. In the end she said I was determined to turn her to an ‘oloti’ (drunkard) like myself. I laughed and said ‘olotis’ (drunkards) are fantastic people as far as I knew. Mr& Mrs B, Mr& Mrs Og, naijaman and I left around 8pm but rather than go home headed for Grand.
We ordered some drinks and peppersoup which we (the women) struggled to eat because it was too spicy, Mrs B concluded that it was not pepper soup but ‘atagungun’ (dried pepper) soup, the men however thought it was just right. I guess beer can do that to really spicy food. Mr Og over the years had grown a pot belly, it seemed to be growing bigger as he got older, amidst the endless teasing of Mr Og over his pregnancy belly his wife looked at him and said;
‘’ If only he’d stop drinking’’
‘’But I don’t really drink that much anymore’’ he retorted back to his wife.
Mr B started laughing; I was sitting next to him and wondered what was so funny.
‘’But we men are wicked sha!!! My paddy played his game so right that Mrs Og thought she was marrying a pastor o’’ he said looking at Mrs Og.

The rest of us with the exception of Mr Og started laughing too, he responded by saying
‘’ Yes o, but shey I no be pastor ni?’’
At this point, Mrs Og could not really contain herself when she replied her hubby in the affirmative.
Mr B’s wife is the most possessive of all the wives and I love to tease her about it. We were talking about housemaids, Mrs Og apparently knew some good agents who helped to secure maids and Mrs B needed a new one and kept impressing upon Mrs Og to ensure she got her one with flat a behind and chest, body odour and ‘eyinshamuga’ (I think shovel teeth is the right translation)for her. Mr B was within earshot but of course pretended like he hadn’t heard a word his wife said.
‘’ Ngbo, Mr B, would eyinshamuga stop you from chop and clean mouth’’? I asked Mr B amidst giggles.
Mr B duly ignored my question, Mrs Og was laughing too but Mrs B was having none of it.
‘’ No way, B does not like women with body odour, he will never chop a woman with body odour, I know what he likes’’ she fired back at me.
‘’How would you know? Do you know all the women he has chopped?’’ I asked her.
Mrs B considered my question for about a minute before turning her attention to Mrs Og who was laughing her socks off
too.

‘’Okay, I just want an ugly maid’’
‘’ Define ugly’’ I fired back at her.

By this time, she had grown weary of the game I was playing and started laughing too. I ended the conversation by telling her that a man hell bent playing
‘away games’ would do so no matter what.

Although I had fun hanging out with our friends, I was very happy to hit the sack when we got home around 11pm.
The reality of our imminent return to Abzzy began to dawn slowly on the morning of the 2nd. If only, we could stay forever I thought. The UK don tire me o jare!!! Naijaman has been telling all for the past year to just say the word whenever I feel like I want to return to Nigeria. One of my NL friends has been sort of egging me on to pack my bags too, my decision to stay until the kids finished primary school hasn’t changed.

I was getting ready to go to Lagos to see one of the Nlders that I’d arranged to meet when I got accosted by my MIL, she had been asking me for days to give her the list of things I wanted to take back with me but I kept forgetting.
‘’ I will not run around like a headless chicken if you give me that list at the last minute’’ she shouted at me as soon as she saw me. I began to laugh but she duly ignored me and went about her other business. My MIL is one of those women who just love to shout, if you didn’t know her you’d take offence but I know her shouts are harmless so I always laugh whenever she does.

I met the NLder as arranged, they were disappointed that I didn’t have my kiddos with me, (they decided not follow me at the last minute because they preferred playing at their cousins’). I said yes to an offer of lunch at Sweet Sensation (I am a sucker for their farmhouse and efo riro). Lunch done, we talked about this and that and gossiped humorously about some NL characters before I went back home.

I didn’t give my MIL the list until the morning of the 4th, she shouted more about having to do a last minute dash to get everything, and of course her shouts were followed by laughter from me. I got everything on the list except snails. I was crushed but it served me bloody right na! I had been laughing at the poor woman the whole time.

Naijaman left for sunny Luanda on the 4th and we left the next day for rainy Abzy. Nothing had changed; I wished I could have brought some sun and heat with me. Holiday’s over, my eye don clear!!!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Episode 3


Return of to the moment

We came back to a rainy day, nothing had changed there; Aberdeen weather is still pretty shitty. The weekend following our return, I got myself cajoled into taking the kids to the cinema, I had gone to see Jack Reacher during the week when the kids were in school, letting this slip while I was talking to Babette got me blackmailed into taking them to see the Rise of the Guardians.
I really don’t like taking them on my own because Baby normally won’t sit for long before he starts asking for the toilet or wanting to run up and down the steps, but Babette did quite a number with her blackmail so I agreed albeit grudgingly to take them on Sunday.

On Saturday, we woke or Baby woke us up at 7am (he always does that but when I wake him at 7am on week days he’d whine), we had slept pretty late on Friday so I was quite tired. They played around me as I cleared their mess from the previous night. Done with cleaning, I sat down and dozed on and off while the kids continued to play.

One of naijaman’s cousins lives in The Hague and we visit him and his family often, it was on one those visits that we got the cable decoder that we use. It uses an internet connection and you can get a motorised dish which allows you to get as many satellite channels as possible, the only downside is that you cannot operate it without its remote control. Thus, my alarm could only be imagined when in my dozing state I heard baby talking to himself about the remote.

‘’ The mowt is in the tunnel and Gordon and Percy and Rosie’’

The mowt is the satellite remote control and the others the names of the trains in his Thomas the Tank engine set (the hole in the sub-woofer unit of the home entertainment system is his tunnel and he often puts all kinds of stuff in it mostly to my chagrin). I was quickly jolted awake, the remote must not get lost.

‘’Baby, put your hand in the tunnel and bring out the remote’’

‘’Okay mummy’’

He brought out all his trains but the remote was not in the ‘tunnel’.

I gave up searching for the remote control after two hours of turning the living room, kitchen, front room and the hallway upside down and decided to ask him where he put it; he might just go and get it from wherever he hid as he does sometimes.

‘’Baby, where is the remote control?’’
‘’It’s in the banana jungle’’
‘’Where is the banana jungle?’’
‘’Outside in the snow’’
‘’But there’s no jungle outside’’
‘’ Erm, I think the mowt is missing, maybe it’s lost’’

Shiot! It’s not going to work, they had been watching Cartoonito channel all afternoon and I have had enough of Fireman Sam and naughty Norman Price.
Without much else to do, I decided to retire to bed early at 7.30pm, if I heard the Looney tunes wacky voices one more time I might just smash the TV.

There is a deal at my local Cinema where kids get to watch movies for a £1 on Sunday mornings that I had planned on taking advantage of, what I didn’t know was that it applies to 10am shows only. I was gobsmacked when I was told that I needed to pay £13 for the kids, the guy at the till went on to explain how the Sunday deal worked. Our movie was due to start at 11.30am but I had gotten there a tad bit later on purpose because the first 30mins is usually spent on trailers. Getting to the movies and watching trailers is not a good idea with Baby because he’d be kicking up all kinds of fuss half way into the movie.

We arrived at 12.15pm by which time it was too late to get into the 11.30am show, I knew that if we went back home I would not bring them back and Babette would hear nothing of the sort. We decided to hang around at Nandos, I was ordering some wings for us to eat when Miss K and her kids walked in behind me. They were coming from church and decided to stop at Nandos before going home. Of course the kids got all excited seeing themselves which was good for me because it meant I would not be answering questions to which I neither knew the answers nor wish to rack my brains to give a satisfactory answer.

As was expected, Baby started his usual antics about 45mins into the movies, at a point he started whining that I got really irritated.

‘’What is wrong with you now?’’
‘’ I am scared, can we go home now?’’
‘’ Why are you scared?’’
‘’There’s a crocodile under my seat and it’s going to get me’’

I could not help the chuckle that followed; the boy was going to try every trick in his little head to leave the cinema. A little while later, he said he needed to do a big fat poo, I bet he knew I’d have to take him as I wouldn’t be sure if he was for real or faking it. Much ado and plenty whining later, he fell asleep and I was especially glad for it.

Baby turned 3 on the 13th of January, my plan was to take to him to Thomas the Tank engine Land at Drayton Manor as a treat but I was not going to do that on my own, we’d all go when naijaman comes home. His nursery always bakes a cake and takes pictures of the kids on their birthdays, since his birthday fell on a Sunday his little party was held the following Monday. I asked him what he wanted to wear being his special moment and all, he asked for his white doctor clothes!!!
Uh oh!!! In this freezing weather?! Maybe I shouldn’t have asked sef, in the end I wore the Buba and sokoto for him with some seriously thick layers underneath.

On the way back from picking them up after school Babette was nice enough to remind me that I had not bought Baby a special cake because the one they made at the nursery didn’t count, I think she was very surprised that I agreed with her ( I am sure she was thinking this is a first in her head). So off we went to Sainsburys to get a cake, we got a Fireman Sam cake because there was no Thomas cake.

I should have been thanking providence for rain because the following week was quite awful, sub-zero temperatures with plenty of snow. I don’t mind a bit of snow but too much of the white stuff is just a bloody nuisance. There’s slosh everywhere, half the people on the road can’t drive but won’t admit it even to themselves therefore causing all kinds of havoc and delay on the road for better drivers like me.

‘’ Mummy, why are you so cross? ’’ Babette asked me as I drove them to school
‘’Because of the snow’’
‘’ But I like the snow, everybody does’’
‘’ Adults don’t like the snow darling’’
‘’ You are just saying that because you are Nigerian’’ she laughed as she said that.
‘’Maybe you should ask Miss Todd if she likes snow’’ Miss Todd is her class teacher.
She always tells me that I am always cold because I am a Nigerian which is probably not too far from the truth.

‘’Well if there’s too much snow I won’t be able to take you to school in the car and you’ll have to walk’’
‘’ Nooooooooo, I don’t want to walk to school, it’s too cold’’
‘’ Is that so? Are you Nigerian then?’’
‘’ Is my daddy Nigerian? ‘’
‘’ You daddy is too Nigerian for his own good’’
‘’ Then I am Nigerian’’

The rest of the drive to school had Baby entertaining us with his rendition of Wizkid and Olamide’s Omo to shan. He however sang the chorus as
‘’ And I we be ply yeh! omo omo na ko cho’’ which makes me laugh all the time I hear him sing it.

When they got back from school, Babette rushed into the toilet like someone being chased and rushed out about 15mins later with alarm.
‘’Mummy, when I flushed the toilet, the water came all the way up to the seat!!!’’

I followed her to discover that toilet was about to overflow, till this moment I don’t know what possessed me to flush the toilet again; this time it overflowed with poo water and bits everywhere. Both of us ran out as the toilet overflowed. The carpeted floor soaked the disgusting water and whatnot and I watched in horror from about a metre away. I missed my hubby all over immediately because if he was home I would have run and not looked back, I had to deal with the mess. Although it was quite late, I spent the next hour cleaning up the mess. Damn! Naijaman please come back home.

The following weekend, Sam one of Babette’s friends and classmate and his mum were supposed to come to ours for lunch, however Sam developed a fever the night before so his mum sent me a text explaining why they had to cancel. Babette was pretty excited about the visit that I knew I was going to get some waterworks when I tell her.
‘’Babette, Sam and his mum can’t come because he is sick’’
‘’What?! You are just saying that! Are you joking Mummy? ‘’
‘’No, I am not. Come and read the text from Sam’s mum’’
After reading the text she burst into tears as I had expected, no surprise there. Nothing a cuddle and kiss couldn’t sort.
‘’ I’ll tell Sam’s mum to call us on the Ipad when he’s feeling better so you can see him’’
‘’Alright Mummy’’

A few hours later, we went shopping for household supplies at Asda; my preference is Sainsurys’ but I had to buy petrol and really was in no mood for any Israelite journey. We were at the baked goods section when Babette spotted a fairy princess cupcake mix, right beside it was a Thomas the Tank Engine one. I did not even bother to offer any protest when both asked for one each.
After unpacking the bag when we got home, I went to have a shower leaving both kids watching Fireman Sam since we could not change the channel until the new remote arrived.

I had just come out of the bathroom when Babette came to and said
‘’Mummy, you need to come downstairs, you have to see something’’
‘’What happened? Did you do something bad? ‘’
‘’No, but Baby did’’

"What has the little munchkin done now?" I wondered out loud.

I walked into the living room to find his cupcake mix everywhere on the blue carpet, he had torn the paper holders into pieces, the little decoration were scattered in all directions. The cardboard frame of his class picture had been torn to shreds with the picture lying as a crumple in the mess. He’d also gone to the kitchen and unrolled a full roll of kitchen towel into the kitchen sink. I swear to God, no be this boy go kill me sha.
‘’Baby, who made all these mess’’
‘’Errrr , I think the big bad mouse did’’
‘’ I said who made this mess’’
‘’Weellll maybe it’s me’’ He dragged the well as he would do when he knows he’s in trouble for being naughty.
Looking at the mess, I left him and Babette there in the living room and went to lie down stewing in my anger until I felt a tad better. If I smacked him in the state I was it would not be to correct him.

The next day, I had to take out Babette braids because it was tatty already, her hair is still natural and thus tatties rather quickly when it’s in extensions. Half way through she gave me the rudest shock.
‘’Mummy, I want to cut my hair’’
‘’What?! Why? ‘’
‘’Because I want short hair like everybody in my family’’
I chopped my hair about 18months ago and have not looked back.
‘’ I don’t want to be a princess anymore and my hair is always disturbing me when I am watching something on the TV or Ipad’’
Now it was my turn to be alarmed, to think I used to threaten her with cutting her hair when she’s not sitting still when I ‘m doing it.
Not really wanting to cut the hair, I used good old fashioned emotional blackmail.
‘’If you cut your hair, you’ll be different at school you know’’
‘’ But Ella has short hair’’
‘’Is there anybody with brown skin in your school with short hair? ‘’
‘’ Only the boys’’
‘’The girls may tell you to play with only the boys if you have short hair like them’’
‘’ I don’t want to cut my hair anymore’’
Mission accomplished!

It was fun while it lasted.