Brighton - Pebbled beach, thieving Gulls and family fun

 Heey people wagwan with y’all.

Like I said earlier, it’s been a blazing end-of-summer period. We’ve had another good summer full of its ups and downs (Stupid Spanish Embassy pricks!!) and in all things, we thank God for life, health and provision.

Before this time, from the end of Spring/beginning of Summer, we had been trying to make plans with my Aunty Ngozi for any sort of family reunion slash party/get together/ any reason to enjoy ourselves, but we weren’t able to put anything together as yet. So in that vein, seeing as Chioma and I missed out on Nadine’s graduation soiree (They threw a mega bash for her in London on her graduation), we put heads together with Aunty Ngo and decided that we’d all do a beach outing somewhere in the UK where all the London fam could be re-united and have at least one annual get together.

Brighton beach was the choice, and everyone (our family circle in London) decided to show up and ball out that day! Awesome.

We had initial concerns regarding the weather for the day, seeing as the rains had been a bit more frequent this period; however, the weather gods were pleased with our choice and gave us lovely weather all through.

Chioma and I decked ourselves up in our beach finery

and booked the morning train on Chiltern Railways via Moor Street Station. It was a beautiful, uneventful journey, and we arrived in Brighton well ahead of the rest of the party, who were driving in from London.

To be honest, there are actually a lot of beautiful cities in the UK and no doubt Brighton is one of them. We didn’t have time to explore too much sha. We headed straight to the beach venue. Seeing as Blackpool beach, which we had gone to earlier (posted here) was such a massive disappointment, our expectations were a bit tempered about Brighton Beach. However, any reservation turned out to be unwarranted. 

Brighton has a beautiful beach front with amazing views and a proper, proper beach vibe going on about it!. There were lots of folks around with tons of stands, pubs, seafront stores, and all the paraphernalia of beachfront settings.

Another curious thing was that this wasn’t a sandy beach as we have always been used to. Brighton Beach was fully pebbled with small, smooth, beautiful stones lining up the whole coast and giving a very different beach vibe

. There were lots of brazen seagulls as well, making a nuisance of themselves and terrorizing vulnerable people who had to abandon their snacks to these aerial bandits. It was comical at some point.

We hung around by ourselves for a bit and eventually went to meet up with the family when they arrived, and my goodness, it was so good to see them all. As usual, Aunty had gone all out with the food. There was so much to eat and nibble on. The drinks were overflowing as well(too much in fact cos a lot of the men were either driving or not drinking)... There was gist flowing as everyone tried to catch up with each other and provide updates on what had been going on in our lives.

The kids were running everywhere and enjoying the whole atmosphere and it was a really good vibe overall.

We didn’t have the luxury of an overnight stay, so when evening set in, Chioma and I said our goodbyes, gave hugs all round, and headed back to the train station. No shenanigans from the train this time, and we got home thoroughly exhausted but very satisfied with a great day!!!

Surrey - Meet the Fam

 Sometime earlier in the year, we got another invite from Chioma’s uncle and aunt who have been here in the UK for a long time now.

Uncle Arthur and Aunty Uche have been…well… let me just say they’ve been a bit reclusive ever since we came over to the UK and even though they’ve reached out once or twice and we indeed went to visit them in 2023 when we came here, it’s been that kind of distant relationship where everyone just kind of keeps to themselves and checks up on each other once every blue moon.

The difference this time around was that they had invited all family members (Spouses and children included) who were in the UK, from Chioma’s maternal side and i think it was intended as a sort of reunion for the family here and to reconnect with their own kids who, suffice to say, have long drifted away from this side of the family. Hmmm..

Everybody accepted the invitation and one fine August weekend, we found ourselves making a trip back to Surrey to visit the family. 

It was a lovely trip as we took a train ride first to Coventry and linked up with Ify and Gbenga who were driving to their house. It was a good, fun road trip.

You know, it’s just so weird to see the effects of what Japa does to families firsthand. We arrived last at the house and met everyone else who had shown up earlier. Now the thing is that Uncle and Aunty’s children have no active bond with their cousins, so it was a bit awkward with everyone just sitting in different spots, scrolling on their phones, and trying to make small talk with each other.

Overall, though, the atmosphere lightened up eventually. Gbenga brought a game of Monopoly and that was used to pass most of the time there with the cousins. They’re lovely people but i guess for Chioma and the rest of the Naija crew, it’s difficult forming any sort of meaningful relationship with people you’ve only known from a distance all your life. I engaged in conversations with them as best as i could and had a lot of gist and banter with the parents.

All in all, it was a lovely time, the food was amazing! Aunty Uche always goes all out to put up an awesome spread. They had also booked us all into a Premier Inn close by so we didn’t have to drive back that same day.

We came back the next morning and had a lovely breakfast before setting back off in every direction whence we came.

The journey back was not as smooth, though. After a lovely trip to London Euston, where we strolled around the capital and even had time to visit a beautiful museum of Human history (I’ve missed being in London, honestly) our train to Birmingham got delayed at one koro location like that and everyone had to get off and wait for the tracks ahead to be cleared. It was a long delay which put everyone off but we eventually got back safely. (The Train company eventually refunded the fare sha, so no wam).

Autumn

 And thats how September just went by without any post on here. Na wa o.

Heey guys… it’s been quite the autumn.

Yeah, it’s that time of the year when people realize that the weather’s getting a bit crispier and the skimpy skimpies have to be retired. The leaves have started taking on their orange hue and it's obvious that winter is warming up (see what i did there?) on the touchline.

This is actually one of my fav times of the year because, it’s not too hot and not too cold. Just right in the middle is how I like it.

Like I said it’s been a busy time for us and I’ll certainly update all doings and going-ons here as appropriate.

There have been trips, events, life updates and the like.

Its just been laziness and this accursed procrastination that’s been keeping me from regularly putting up stuff here.

All good sha. Shebi we have accepted it like that.

Coupled up

 Hey fam, so some further updates on life events..

My beautiful sister in law Ify, recently met someone here in the UK, and they have decided to tie the knot.

Lovely stuff.

She told us about it earlier in June and asked to bring him round to visit us. She issued an initial caveat and declared to us that he was a dreadlocked, Yoruba guy.. Not sure why that would make any difference to us, but understandable given the fact that our parents' generation can be remarkably closed off to certain things..

However, in this case, her boyfriend, Gbenga is a great, well-mannered guy who seems very chill and has no issues. He’s working here in the UK, with family back home in Lagos. His family are also very welcoming to inter tribal unions so it wasn't an issue for them at all.

Despite her initial (lackluster) reluctance and the expected objections from my MIL, she came round pretty quickly to the idea of having a Yoruba son-in-law, and I believe she was just happy that Ify had found someone worth giving her hand to. (I think the dreadlocks were more the issue sef)

Similarly, there were no objections on our part, and after their visit to our place, we eventually helped him facilitate a beautiful proposal where he officially asked her to marry him..lol…

They should be getting hitched sometime in October, and credit to them, they want their parents around for the event. His parents already have a visa and were already planning to come over for another family wedding, so we had to apply for a visa for my MIL to come over to the UK for the event. She’s got a 2-year approval and will be coming soon. Yaay.

Congrats to Ify and Gbenga…may they have a fulfilling, happily married life.

Paintballing

 Hey guys, so we’re constantly ticking off new experiences.

We went paintballing sometime earlier this month. Following the Blackpool adventure weekend, and as part of our summer activities, Jerry organized a group paintball session for anyone that was interested.

For those who don’t know, Paintball is nothing related to the calming, relaxing activity that is most associated with paint. This is a full-on war-mode, aggressive, hyperactive activity involving real air-powered rifles shooting paint pellets at opponents in an open field/battleground environment, simulated to resemble the real thing, with obstacle courses, castle forts, tree trunks, battle tanks, and other such warfront paraphernalia.

We were even dressed in warrior gear and issued must-wear, protective headgear at all times.

Bruh…It was maaad fun.

The name of the place sef would give a clue to the sort of activity there: ‘’Delta Force’’ Paintball.

So, we were grouped into two different teams, given these crazy air-powered rifles, and with the paintball pellets we bought as part of the package, it was a really good time. We had different scenarios/games to engage in, with set time limits and objectives for each team. The team that was able to achieve this within the time limit would be declared the winners. At the end of the day, no team was able to top the other and it was basically declared a draw.

Full disclosure sha, those pellets hurt like a mofo and it’s certainly no fun getting shot multiple times. The physical exertion of the whole thing was grueling as well and just showed me that age is slowly creeping in o!

Of course, the kids couldn't join in the paintball session, but afterwards, we all drove to a nearby park and had a fantastic picnic.

The ladies (there were other families involved for this day, some other Nigerian couples here in Brum, who were mostly friends and families of Jerry and Joy)had prepared lots of food and drinks. Chioma and I came with some wine and other picnic stuff, the guys had brought enough alcohol to float Noah’s ark and the weather was absolutely perfect, so everything was set for an epic time.

Honestly, it’s days like this with similarly minded families and communities that make up for those long, dreary, work-filled, cold ass periods in this country. Suffice to say, a good time was had by all. 

Good to know that we have a sort of community with people here, organise outings like this from time to time, let our collective hair down, and just generally have a good time.

Long may it continue.

Throw back thoughts

 Hey fam, what's gwan

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been getting very involved in the kitchen…refining and re-tuning my significantly accomplished cooking skills. Anyway, that’s not the direction this post was headed… 

So one day, I’ve just seasoned and boiled some amazing-looking chicken parts and prepping them for frying. I’m just about popping them in the air fryer when it strikes me how far along we’ve come with the simple everyday things we’re now accustomed to. I recall Lolo straining and leaning far back from a frying pan over a hot stove flame to avoid hot oil splashes whenever she had to fry chicken or meat back then. These days, we just plug in the air fryer, set a timer and leave it to all work itself out.

It got me thinking back to our childhood and so many specific instances of how life has advanced and how much easier things are now.

Now whenever, I get in the bathtub and turn on the shower or wash plates from a running tap in the kitchen, I recall going out every evening with a contraption called ‘’ifami’’ (a hollowed out rubber bag, with a significant length of twine or rope tied to a loop on the top) to the insanely deep well in our compound to fetch water in basins/buckets and lug them back to the house daily to ensure that there was water in the house for our daily needs. This routine became so ingrained with families in the compound then, that the well became a sort of meeting and gisting point for all the youngins back then. Na wa o. 

Related to the above and a bit gross, whenever I push the flush button after taking a pee in the loo, I wince whenever I remember that sometimes back then, we never considered doing so unless there was nothing solid in the bowl to get rid of. (Or when the smell had started overpowering the cheap air fresheners).

I chuckle whenever I use the vacuum cleaner to hoover up the house now and remember using our broom (usually the stiff midribs of dried palm fronds, all bunched together) to sweep our always dusty carpet in the living room and other rooms in the house back then. Bruh, those brooms were stressful as fuck. You had to keep pausing to hit the tops back together and ensure that the whole thing hadn’t come apart from whatever string held them together. Nnamdi almost made a career of sweeping the parlour with those things on Saturday mornings..lmao

Similar memories of hours-long Saturday washing and rinsing sessions with piles of clothes from all comers bunched up together waiting to be hand-washed in basins and buckets re-surface and now clash with the simple act of throwing them all in a fabric-softener-infused washing machine to do laundry nowadays.

It also amuses me how quickly the mortar and pestle became obsolete kitchen tools. At some point, we even used to make eba in them (Ohhh.. the memories).. Fill the mortar with hot boiling water, sprinkle several handfuls of garri evenly to ensure minimised lumping/clumps, set a kitchen stool behind and sit down, then grab the pestle and commence the hard work of pounding the whole mixture together (while hoping our itinerant Landlady, ‘’Up-Mummy’’ doesn't start complaining about the noise). There’s this special technique that only experience can give you for making Eba this way. You have to know when to pause pounding and give the whole thing a quick, heavy-handed swirl with the pestle as a lever…I can’t explain it.. Nowadays, we have mechanized pounders, Ninja-branded machines, and Buchimix contraptions that you can’t even tell what they’re to be used for. As an aside, we absolutely hated washing the mortar after this. There would be holes in the wood, which would contain remnants of whatever was pounded and these were just gross to get out.

A couple of weeks ago, since it was a bit slow draining, I poured a full bottle of solution to unclog our kitchen sink. Really effective stuff. I recall our wastewater dispersal method back then in Adeite and laugh my ass off. There was a special white (initially white but now browned from long use) reconverted paint bucket which we would scoop all the dirty water from the sink and then have to trudge outside the house to get rid of in the open gutter in front of the house. Mahn!!

Of course, all these instances are ultra-specific to me and my personal experiences while growing up. 

Change is always constant and growth is to be expected. However, the point of this mid-day rant was just to reminisce on nostalgic days back and recall that you can’t discount progress and how easy it has made life for us all.

Our kids will read this one day and will only be able to imagine scenarios like these.

Blackpool

 Hi people

Yeah fam…It’s been a minute innit and life has been going on with us all..taking us through the ups and the downs and the sideways and the everyways..

Anyway, we’ve been good and the summer has been summering over here.. So even though we missed out on the “Great vacation” due to the Spanish consulate idiots, the Evenbrookers decided to organise a family weekend trip out of town. Chidi actually came up with the idea and it was very well received.

We’d heard a lot about it, so we all decided to take a trip to Blackpool and spend a relaxing weekend there. The plan was to rent an Airbnb somewhere close by and drive down to all the tourist attractions that Blackpool offers on the days in question. 

I was in charge of renting the Airbnb, Chioma was in charge of organising the itinerary, Joy was in charge of the culinary aspects of the trip and the guys were in charge of organising logistics and activities. 

We looked into a lot of options but after realizing that it was going to be a lot financially, we cut down on some attractions and opted to do the Pier walk on friday evening, visit the Blackpool Pleasure Beach resort and the actual beach on saturday and see if we could fit in the Zoo or the Blackpool tower on Sunday.

Everything went very smoothly and we had an amazing time there. Chioma and I split ourselves and joined both families in their respective cars on the drive to and from. The road trip was a very smooth one with lots of gist and laughter. The rental was a beautiful 4-bedroom house in Penwortham in a very nice estate.

Well, as it often happens, not everything went according to plan, and a lot of our prior plans changed over the weekend. Instead of the Pier walk in Blackpool, we all took a stroll around the town on Friday evening instead, and walked by the beautiful waterfront in Penwortham. We drove down to Blackpool Pleasure Beach on Saturday morning but the resort was packed full, and we had a rough time trying to get on as many rides as possible. The beach was also a bust as it didn't live up to the expectations we had heard so much about (and there was a long “missionary” walk to actually get to it). So, instead, we organised a barbecue night where the guys prepared grilled turkeys for everyone, and we had a fantastic night.

We also weren't able to visit the zoo or anything else on the Sunday, as everyone was knackered and looking forward to just getting back to Brum to rest and recuperate.

All in all… it was a great weekend away with good friends and their families. Chinyere also came to visit on Saturday and brought her own liveliness to the trip. It was also great to realize that the dynamic and coordination between the families is very good when things like this are planned. The food was great, the company was fun and honestly, we all had a good time.

Insha Allah, we all plan to make this a thing and repeat it every year.