This morning I thought it would be a quiet day with no headaches.

By this afternoon I had changed my mind. My bridesmaid drama showed no signs of abating. I had called the bride's sister to ask a question about jewellery and mentioned in passing that i was off to buy our gold shoes, only to hear...
"Oh no Caramel it's not gold anymore, it's now silver."
"What do you mean?"
"Well we saw the dress up close and realised that it had silver threading and decided to change the shoes."
"No one told me!!!!! So if I hadn't called you, I would have been screwed."
"I thought you knew"

What rankles is that for ages I have been browsing shops and have passed countless silver shoes but have turned a blind eye in my quest for f@*king gold shoes. Two weeks before the wedding, outfit change and NOT A WORD !

Fast forward to the evening. My friend PL, had helped me picked the shoes and was going to have dinner with her fiancee. I had picked up my dinner and didn't want to rush home to my World War 3 house in a hurry and asked if I could chill in her flat and have my dinner then go home.

So far, so good.

We get to her flat, and I see that her brother (Ex-hottie, best kisser to date, former object of my desire, currently engaged to be married) was not going out but staying in. Not an issue. PL and her fiancee go to dinner, Ex-hottie goes to the sitting room and I'm in the kitchen making dinner and speaking on my phone.

After a while PL starts calling, I ignore it as I'm talking to my friend from India but it's persistent. She calls ex-hottie to say that they are turning around and are on the way to take me to dinner too!

Huh?

Why on earth would you break your date to turn around and add plus one? I argued that I had had dinner already, that they were on a date, that this made no sense! Nope, she said, they had decided to come and get me, it's Saturday night etc etc.

Fantastic, I am now a pity case.

I ask ex-hottie, why is your sister turning kolo, and he says.."she doesn't trust me alone in the house with you!"

I was about to laugh until I saw the look on his face. I seriously don't think he's joking. Now I'll wonder, really wonder what all of that was about! Is that why they came back? Does she know something I don't? Are we not all adults? He's getting married for heaven's sake!

Then in the middle of all of that, while I'm waiting for them to come and get me and I'm trying to decipher the look on ex-hottie's face, I'm getting three texts from Baked Beans! Is something in the air! Can you imagine! After total silence for 6 months, suddenly random jokey texts! For me to say what exactly?

'LOL'
'How are you?'
' :0)'

Rubbish!!!!!

I, Caramel Delight, look foward not backwards! Old news belongs in the bin!*

*Metaphor for old love interests, not encouragement to not recycle.

Where were you when you heard Michael Jackson had died?


I had just come back from Accident and Emergency because my boss fell in our theatre during a show and chipped a bone in her leg. Shattered and tired at 11.20pm, a text from my cousin....Micheal Jackson is dead! I called her back and shouted at her that I'm not in the mood. She told me to go and put on my TV.

Michael!! I told my Mum when I was little that you were the only one I wanted to marry, we loved your music so much. I am speechless. No one can ever touch you, ever.

I hope death gives you the peace you never had in life.

RIP.

I had banned myself from online activity like Blogger and FB because at work we are in the middle of our new campus launch. No simple ribbon cutting here, nope! Six days of 17 events like shows, lectures, open days and celebrity visits. The highlight of my career thus far, the result of four months planning, the justification of my MA!

Day two, my feet are dead and I'm shattered!

Anywhos, the news reached me that Bumight said she might end her e-pregnancy because Doug was looking at my bum, and I thought, I have to blog this evening cos this is too freaky!

I dreamt about Bumight last weekend. In the dream, Mum is reading The Guardian newspaper and I see a column written by Bumight. It's actually got that name on its byline. I snatch the paper and yell that I know that person! I scan the paper and in my dream I identify her (no picture) by phrases she uses in her blog. I wonder though, because I'm thinking when did she leave medicine now? How come she is writing for a big British newspaper?

So when I woke up, I was very perplexed. I don't dream about bloggers! Well there was this one time,very racy dream actually ;) I digress. I was very very very puzzled! Then I cracked it! Remember my cousin who got me frantic because we had to pay £175 for the bridesmaid dress? Well after deep prayer, we got it cheaper in America. Now we are being told about £30 for make up for our face and £50 for our hair to be styled. Not fixing the weave, just arranging it!! £50 !!!!!

I am pissed off! The whole evening I was muttering to myself. I won't do the make up but the hair I can't get out off :( So my last thought to myself as I went to bed was "Shebi Bumight wants to be a bridesmaid, she should be careful what she wishes for oh!"

That's why I dreamt of Bumight! LOL!

One more curious thing before I crash for the night. Two nights ago, my Mum woke me up by calling my name and saying I should come to her room. I ran out to find glass all over her carpet floor. I looked to the window and the ceiling wondering what had fallen and saw nothing. The thick sheet of glass that we place over our cabinet tops to protect the wood at home, had cracked and splintered into a million tiny pieces, ALL BY ITSELF.

Standing in her room I could still hear the damn thing cracking and pinging as it continued to shatter and shatter in more tiny diamond like pieces. That is the freakiest thing I have ever seen in my whole life. My Geek Squad Captain said it must be heat but we have actually turned off the central heating at home. The house is the coolest it has ever been. Weird! I don't like the fact that it poured all over her floor and over her duvet, it could have gotten her face. Na God oh!

OK short post has turned epic. Time for bed.

PS Sirus you aren't online!
PPS Do you know the kind of self control needed to not read tempting blog posts till the weekend?

Due to popular demand (OK fine only four people) as promised before all the wahala, for the first time in six years, MY BUTT IN JEANS! LMAO!

Taken in the most quiet point in my office building, where no one would find us taking butt pictures ;)

I never knew panic could be so crippling! So I'll just say thank you for all your kind thoughts and prayers. I have no shame, when I need extra praying power I go to all who can help both here and in the 'real' world! I'm guessing if God gets harassed enough by everybody then He can't ignore me, right?

In a nutshell, my Dad's brothers that I spoke about about two posts back, went to Abuja and brought 'policemen for hire' to arrest my parents and my Dad's cousin on trumped up charges. Luckily my Mum wanted to visit her mum before going on to fly back to London so they were not home (missed them by an hour) when they came to harass them. They did grab my Dad's cousin though. Hey! Every five minutes my phone was ringing.

Hearing your Mum panic that they might try to grab her before she boards a plane, (they actually tried but went to the wrong airport) when she has done nothing wrong is the worst thing I have experienced in my adult life. The worst part was being in London and feeling useless. My Mum is back and my Dad is in Abj with proof to show that the allegations are false.

My fear is gone and is now replaced with anger. I don't take to kindly to idiots trying to harm my parents. 20 years of stress all because my Dad was trying to hang on to the dream and legacy of my Grandfather's family. Well that's over and he has realised that now. Even those that aren't the trouble makers stick their heads in the sand and pretend nothing is going on. That entire palace can burn as far as I am concerned. To your tent oh Isreal.

Anyway, it's all about the funds now. Before it was money for the house, now you got to think of court cases as well but God dey. I will happily embrace being broke to bring this whole pile of crap to an end. You need to see my Mum, she came back having lost all this weight from stress! Hmmm! No this won't do at all.

I'm going to bounce, but I wanted to say that God will bless all of you. New friends and old for emails and phonecalls and making me laugh. I feel like I have lost my blogging mojo and all (chai I haven't even been on Fatbusters since) but I wanted to explain in a nutshell and say thank you.

CaramelD xxx

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Isreal will neither slumber or sleep.

The Lord is your keeper, the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The Sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil, he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.


This was good enough for David all those thousands of years ago, then it is good enough for me, a woman who has lost her ability to talk properly to God. This Psalm is all that goes through my head. God please I hope you hear my prayers, I always thought that poor health is what would make me fear for my parents. I never thought it would be murderous intentions of people who share the same blood line as me that would make me weak with worry. I dread every Nigerian phonecall right now.

I don't doubt that you are doing something, the minute they went to visit my Grandmother is the moment the hired thugs came looking for them, God please please please please I am a 27 yr old woman in tears, please my parents are all I have.

Late last year I lamented about problems my Dad was facing with the male members of his polygamous family.  When he got back to Nigeria their accusations came thick and fast, one of them being that he does 'juju' and is behind some of his half brother's failures (if you met these men you would doubt that). 

So approximately how many frogs does a woman have to work through to average out a prince? Or in plain English, what is the ratio these days for weird/crappy/freaky dates : normal dates? There has to be some kind of scientific formula. There are so many whizz kids in Blogsville, someone must know?


I'm not a Hollywood/Disney devotee, I know real life. I'm not asking for an outing with Prince Charming (we are human after all) but darn! I do not need the kind of situation where you are thinking to yourself, "someone is going to jump out with a camera crew and yell 'SURPRISE' because this cannot be happening to me!"


As the song asks, who really did let all the dogs out??? This is why I stay home, but then my friends shout at me to go out!


I NEED A BISCUIT!!! (I'm not going to have one though).
_____________________________________________________

It's that time of the week . Drumroll.....................

Freaky Bridesmaid Diet/ Week 6 = No Change

I need to increase my exercise serioulsy!(Not Roc's type of exercise LOL) I felt I hadn't lost so I'm not surprised. Drank a lot of alcohol on Saturday and that will hinder all progress. So onwards and upwards!

I am wearing jeans for the first time in six years and I look goooooooood! Next time I will take a picture of my bum and post it. That is how happy I am :)

Drama in my office this week oh! Two crying managers from different units with different issues. Na wa oh! Tensions are running high and Caramel is running to Birmingham. I need a break from London haba. Have a blessed weekend everybody.

Woooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooooooo!
Conga Line!!!!

We totally kicked ass last night! Praise the Lord! Alleluia! Alleluia, Amen!

To recap, I work for a Marketing Dept in a Further Education college in London. So last night was our Oscars so to speak. We were up against other colleges and big big universities (whose marketing and PR budget is nearly 10 times our own).

So for the three entries we were nominated for we won awards in all three! Wooo hoooooooo! You have Gold, Silver and Bronze. So we won Gold in a tough category where we were the only college and 9 flipping universities! When they called our name our table went nuts! Could not believe it! So that was for Integrated Regional Campaign. We won Bronze for Print Media (very happy I had to write the nomination entry, 2500 of full blown English) and our boss won Silver for Marketeer of the Year.

That's how we carried one trophy and three plaques to work today (but we came in late shah, we left the venue at 12.30am). That validation feels soooooooooo good, especially as it is a UK wide competition. Sooooo PARTY OVER HERE!!!!!

Ironically we had the dinner and awards ceremony at the Royal Courts of Justice and I thought 'this is the closest my Dad is ever going to get me in court' LOL.

In other gist since I have joined Fatbusters I will change my weigh in day to coincide with their own so I weighed myself this morning and guess what...I had lost 1kg !!! Even though it's not yet a full week!

Freaky Bridesmaid Diet/Week 5 = 1 kg

I need more exercise, so went to get a new sports bra. Gosh it was so complex. They had grades for different strengths of bra. 1 - 5 Imagine! There was a chart at the back of each packet, the type of complicated chart that Danny B would love. Eg If you are 32C and want to do yoga then level 1, if you are 34B and want to horse riding (gini?) then level 3 etc etc! Na wa oh! I spent time in that store scratching my head for real. The worse part is that poor me 36F, everything apart from gentle stretching was Level 4, Level 4, Level 4! Foolish and ingredients!

So that is how one sports bra was £28! Lord have mercy! I didn't have a choice oh! Have to get one before you are doing kickboxing lessons and your chest nearly takes out your eye all in the name of losing weight!

Please pray for me oh, I have two places I need to be tomorrow one is in Luton, one is in London, no car, just trains and my leggedes benz. It's loooong man! Chai! This time next year I am driving , na aha Jesu Kristi, Amen!

Sirus tagged me a while ago, but I really have issues with deep introspection. In the past though I promised to be completely honest in my blog so this should be right up my street, no? Well anywhos yeah me!!! (That's me bragging by the way: see below).



RULES

1.You must brag about it

2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger

3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends (lol).

4.Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!


For anyone who wants to know, here goes....



1. I always, always, always burst into spontaneous song and dance routines. I have a song for every occasion. I sing in my head and sometimes it blurts out. I also toe tap and do random dance routines to either cheer myself or other people up. I can't help it. I also do it in the office. I tried for a while but about my third month I cracked. It's now an office tradition that I do the happy birthday routine for anyone who's birthday it is in our team. I can mimic most styles, Bollywood, Hip Hop, cabaret, Naija styles, old musicals.....the list goes on. I love to dance, always , always, always!

2. I am still in possession of my V-Plates. I have to be psychologically comfortable with someone before I can be physically comfortable with them, so I have never understood the whole fling thing per say. So as I have never had a long term relationship, it never happened. There have been two men that if fate hadn't intervened I would have sooooooo gone there! No joke! When you click on both levels it's a beautiful thing. It doesn't come up in conversation because when you tell guys they roughly behave in three ways: like you are a challenge that needs to be conquered, a science experiment that needs studying or they just look at you in abject fascination. My favourite quote from one guy was, "but you are not a spiro, you go clubbing and dress sexy..."

3. A secret worry niggles at my brain and I have never told anyone. I wonder about the future, when God has called both my parents and I am my brother's guardian. Will he be happy? Will he want to find his birth parents (don't even know how to)? Will I be able to look after him properly? I trust in God's love but I do worry now and then.

4. My tight circle of friends are more family to me than my actual family. They are smart, kind, warm, loyal funny women and I am blessed to have them in my life.

5. I cannot stand people who snap their bubble gum while chewing. It's the most awful thing in the world in terms of decorum to me argggghhhhhhhhhh!

6. I am such a homebody. I need to be pried out of my house half the time. But when I go out I love it. Dressing up, going out and having fun, the music, the extra shiny lipgloss, the friends. Love it. (I love my wrapper too though haha).

7. Slowlyyyyyyyyyyy trying to love my body. I am trying to stop with the moaning and look after the 'vehicle of my soul' and maybe it will start looking after me back. So bitching is on a minimum. Instead I'm now looking at the parts I love. I love my boobs. They are fabulous, they can be always called upon to make a dress look hotter LOL. I love my skin too, it suffered during my childhood and now has bounced back. Erm maybe my eyes too. I shall always thank God for one special thing though. No matter how big or small I get, I always have a figure '8' correct. hahahaha. God is good!

8. Books are the life blood to my sanity. I love reading so much. As an only child growing up, they were my friends. One book meant hours of escape and adventure, and knowledge. I used to devour them. By 10/11 I was unto Mary Higgins Clark and Jeffrey Archer. My Year 4 teacher in primary school used to bring in books she was sure didn't have violence or sex because I had gone through the school's library and wanted more. Oh Miss Stimpson. I loved her! I wonder where she is now. She was so cool.

9. Spent most of my 27 years being responsible and dependable and now I hate it a bit. I get taken for granted sometimes and it sucks. I get signed up for stuff and no one bothers to ask because 'good ol' Caramel won't mind.' Hmm. I love helping but you don't want to help people so much that you lose your own life in their business! No way! Same with friends. Don't want to be the Mummy figure. Trying to break that shit. No more ageing myself before my time.

10. This stuff is hard. OK last one. I love walking around in my underwear. It's liberating. Now that it's getting warmer in London, there is a lot more of that going on. Ohh even better dancing in my underwear, fabulous! Always puts me in a good mood.

So I think everyone has done this by now, right? I'm the last one I'm sure. So like the last meme I did I am going to tag people who will probably ignore me but it might happen ;)

Freaksho
Carlang
Badderchic (where is she?)
Moka Blogger
Roc Naija
Nigerian Scorpio
Doug (my BFF is so off the radar that even NASA can't find him )

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Freaky Bridesmaid Diet/Week 4 = No change
Thank God! Why? Because last few days I have been bitched slapped by my period so doing my best impression of a beached whale. So no shaking, was actually afraid that I would put on. Women suffer you know, chai.