#ChroniclesFromBonn – Opening Day

You won’t believe what happened on this day I’d been counting down to for the past three months! One, my monthly visitor came (without any warning, smh), and second, the night before I couldn’t sleep (AT ALL) and so about 4am, my head started pounding.

By 5am I found sleep, and regardless of the alarm I set for 7am, I didn’t stir till 8.30amm, and I think it was only because my dad rang! I don’t think I’ve gotten ready any faster than I did that morning, and I caught a taxi to the venue (non-refundable expense) because my sense of geography is terrible and I know that because I was panicked that I was late, it would be even worse!

Made it there, and somehow, I was still on time – somehow. Sorted myself, grabbed a cuppa, and after I had been briefed by Janusz, the business of the day began! My brief? Get people who ordinarily would not have met each other to interact, and on camera! Want to see the end result?

We’d drawn up a list of questions and given our respondents to answer in front of our cameras.

Some other teams came up with #MeetMe, and that simply was – a person with a board saying their name, what they do, and links to their work and other online presence. Again, want to see mine?

That’s Dominick in the back!!

 

I listened in on a couple of sessions (was a little out of it – I can imagine I was grumpy) and then it was lunchtime.

Lunch was beef kebab in peppers and veggies, potato gratin and chicken, and a strawberry chocolate mousse. The potatoes were out of this world! What!!! I would have asked for the recipe but I just felt like it was so good it had to be unhealthy! Dang!

 

It was also really lovely to see Ole Wintermann again (we were on a panel together at Social Media Week Hamburg in February), and I met Mario Sorgalla for the first time! Mario is one of the bosses at Future Challenges, and it was really nice to talk. Great conversation, new ideas, and I’m super glad Mario has dropped the crutches! 

Messed about with Salim at the end of the day, and then Ruth and I pushed off to the market, I mean a girl has to shop! Yes we took more pictures!

Got home, cramps in full swing, and I still cooked dinner! Wanna see? Of course you do!

 

Tortellini with chicken and an avocado salad. Yum!

Tumbled into bed, and glory be to God who always causes us to triumph over insomnia, I fell asleep almost immediately!

 

 

 

 

 

Bitter, sweet, some shades of neat: My review of ‘Labor Day’

I’ve been in love with Kate Winslet for a little bit. From her delivery in Titanic (1997) that I can shamelessly admit I still haven’t finished, to The Holiday, to Finding Neverland, there’s a purity in her eyes and voice that just draws me to her.

When I heard of the opportunity to attend a private screening for ‘Labor Day’, I knew I had to go see it! Not because mi lady was the central character, not because I’d never been to Paramount Pictures (hello bragging rights), and not even because I’m a sucker for movies with a splash of romance!

Why then? Well, I couldn’t tell how the movie would end from the trailer, and normally I can at least hazard a guess. I watched it thrice, formulated two endings I wasn’t convinced with, and decided hey, need to see this one to the end already!

Thanks to @MumsnetBloggers and @ParamountUK I got two tickets, and so on Thursday, off to Gunnersbury I went! Made a wrong train call (thanks to my already established ‘love’ for geography) so I got there a few minutes into the movie.

Infidelity, violence against children, murder (or manslaughter, depending on whose side you’re on), and secondary infertility, are some of the themes wrapped into this weekend where Adele (Kate Winslet) falls in love with a murderer on the run Frank (Josh Brolin) after he strong arms her in a supermarket using her son Henry (Gattlin Griffith).

While I don’t know if my mother would approve of taking strangers home (scratch that, she would never approve) the movie is a clear depiction of life happening to us, regardless of what established norms in our societies are.

Another thing I wasn’t quite comfortable with was Frank hiding at Adele’s but not really hiding. He was out in the front fixing the car, hung out with another child (challenged in his speech but almost gave the game away). I was also quite worried about young Henry’s friend piecing that Henry was going away because the man his mother fell in love with was the one wanted for murder.

Despite these, Labor Day for me was a story of chance meetings, finding love in a hopeless place (literally), and how humans are sometimes quick to judge before examining all the angles of any story.

Did the movie mess with my emotions? Yes. I shed a tear when it seemed like Adele’s life was over because I’ve been in that place, and very recently too. That’s another thing I liked about it, the fact that from the trailer I could relate with it (and no I haven’t been in love with any sort of criminal thank you).

Away from the music, the nibbles were great (president of the foodie club reporting for duty) and I’m grateful for a lovely night courtesy @MumsnetBloggers and @ParamountUK, and an even lovelier movie.

Now, I made sure I only read the reviews after I’d seen the movie (many a good movie experience have been tainted by the lettering of reviewers) and I missed a part all of them spoke nicely about.

And so, I’m going to see it again. I have to.

PS – Did I mention Chiswick Park is breathtaking at night? Wow… the lights, the water, the birds (ended up arguing if they were ducks or seagulls with my friend), oh my.  That’s another place I need to ‘do’ again. I have to!

Dear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to you

So I saw this article on a friend’s blog and it spoke to me so much I knew I wanted to have it in a place I’d be able to retrieve and show my daughter easily.

To be honest I loved Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana and her roles in all those little high school movies they made not more than three-to-five years ago. She was adorable, like the teen version of Jennifer Aniston, America’s sweetheart.

This Lil Kim/Rihanna/Lady Gaga wannabe is not only one of the sharpest transformations I’ve seen, one of the most disgusting (however successful), but it is befuddling. How does someone work SO HARD to create a dirty image of themselves?

Anyway, before this becomes a full post in itself, enjoy the one that inspired it.

Blessings.

 

Dear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to you.

This thing about training a child

On a train from Leicester Square to Heathrow about a week ago now I sat beside a man and a young boy who couldn’t be more than nine years old. Typical pesky child, he wanted to know everything – why the vents were open, why they had to stop at so many places before Acton Town (where they got off), if the two people snogging opposite them were married (and if they had children), I found myself chuckling and asking myself if I was that inquisitive at his age! I was probably worse, sigh.

Let’s digress a bit. I don’t think it’s ‘okay’ to kiss and cuddle and do all those other ‘grownup things’ in the presence of children. I don’t know have any research to back this up, nor do I know how to fully explain myself but I just think that if we all delayed their exposure to these things a little, it just might delay their debut into all things intimate and sexual.

Did I say not to show affection in public? Nope, go for it! I’m all for it, actually think it’s cute, all I’m saying is, keep it PG! So, not the saliva exchange programme or fondling, or any of that stuff, get a room (literally)! Otherwise what’s the point of classifying/rating movies if they’ll just see the action live anyways!

Back to the man and the boy now. It was funny trying to concentrate on my book, listen to Michael Franks, and keep up with the boy’s chatter. Then all of sudden, I heard what I’m going to try to reproduce as accurately as I can below.

Man – no, you cannot go out unsupervised with a bunch of friends I don’t know

Boy – not fair! I said I’d bring them home. You’ll know them

Man – doesn’t mean you can go out unsupervised…

Boy – (cuts in) oh shut up

Man – what did you say?

Boy – nothing (mumbles under his breath)

Man – you know you cannot talk to me like that

Boy – (cuts in) you shouldn’t stop me from going out with my friends

The man tried to say something else and in the next few minutes, the number of ‘shut ups’ this urchin told the man (parent or guardian) almost surpasses the number of times I’ve greeted my parents in my lifetime!!

What!! And guess what? The man did/said nothing, apart from “still not going to let you go out unsupervised with kids I do not know”. I thought to myself, “that’s it?” I increased the volume on my music, and for three reasons:

1. Coming from  my background, telling someone older than you (not to talk of your parents) to shut up  was (still is) unimaginable. Never even said it in my mind before!

2. The disgust I felt at the parent for feeding that type of errant behaviour. Was obviously not his first time of lashing out like that, and I wondered how he would talk to his teachers at school.

3. Really needed to get back to my book!

Credit: Rational Hub

Gisted my boyfriend and we agreed that on the way to learning/imbibing the fear of the Lord, the fear (read as respect for/obedience to) parents is an important milestone! Will we correct our children? Oh definitely! We will speak to them, pray for/with them, admonish/caution them, and then if we have to, ladies and gentlemen we will spank!

Why? Well, because the idea of children is neither to make up a quota of babies in our community or breed/fatten animals for sale or slaughter; the idea is to bring forth Godly seed that will be great, useful to themselves, us, and to their immediate and extended communities. Hardly starts from telling us to shut up, no?

My kids won’t even think it.

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Blogging for Mumsnet, whoop!

First things first, I don’t have a child, at least not yet. But, I’ve taken care of quite a few of them, I love them to pieces, and there are few things I wouldn’t do for a child. One thing actually, and that is sucking their nose (to clean it out). You know when they are at that age when you can’t tell them ‘blow’ or mimic the nose-blowing action for them to follow successfully? I know aunts and moms who won’t hesitate to put mouth to nostril and…..yuck!

Ah! You’re still here! Means you didn’t bring up your breakfast. Seriously though, it relieves the child enough (there’s only a few things worse than seeing your baby with a stuffed nose, breathing from the mouth), and some claim, better than nasal sprays and things. Still can’t do it though! My friends who are moms say that as soon as I have my own babies I will do it but nope! I don’t think so!

I have a nephew who will be a year old in a few days, and I love him to pieces, just like I would love my own child. He’s my first official nephew, and my parents’ first grandchild. Naturally we dote on him, at some point he wasn’t allowed to cry (except my sister and I wanted to get a talking to from my mom), and to be honest he’s the cutest baby in the world!

I was there when he was born (well not there the entire time to be honest, I freaked out at some point), and I’ve bathed him, sang to him, fed him, rocked him to sleep, strapped him on my back. I’ve changed diapers, cleaned his vomit, read to him, prayed for him, endured him banging on my laptop (with bated breaths) cos he’s looking for himself inside it, what else could you do for a child?

I remember bawling in church one Sunday because my sister had sent me pictures of him very ill with quite the spread of rashes. But, I have never, and don’t plan to ever clean his nose (or any other nose for that matter) with my mouth thank you very much. My boyfriend might be open to that, I dunno. I’m happy to use Calpol nasal spray because it really, really worked for my nephew.

Ah ha! Now that that’s out of the way, I’m delighted to be joining Mumsnet Bloggers Network, I’ve read a lot of articles off that network and I sent in my application with my heart in my mouth. I was pretty chuffed to get that email welcoming me to the network, really chuffed!

I look forward to sharing stories from my childhood, tales from looking after my nephew (hereafter referred to as Boo Boo or Liam) and mirroring experiences from everyone else here.

I’m African, Nigerian to be precise and so even though I currently live in England, there are some parenting techniques/experiences I will write about that will be traditionally African (proudly) – so feel free to ask for explanations on anything!

Some days it’ll be full on posts, other days it’ll be short stories, and some days it might be a video or a picture, but you have my word that each offering will bring you back for more!

Hugs,

Future mom

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