The Bitch is back...apparently

So there's a new 'situation' in the offing. My sister-in-law would like to come and spend some time with us and see our new house. "Noooo!" I hear you cry. "Don't let that girl anywhere near your nice new sheets." Look, I have no problem with her coming up to see us. I am always civil to her when we meet (which thankfully isn't very often). I have never forbade Mr Bunny from seeing his sister or spending any time with her. I have however, forbidden him from ever giving her any money, but that's for another day.

Anyway, she wants to come and visit with her boyfriend for a couple days, which I'm not happy about (more on that in a bit). The problem is, it won't just be the two of them. She wants to bring their dogs. Yes. Dogs. Plural. As in not one, but TWO dogs. Two black labrador retrievers. In my house. Which is carpeted. In cream carpet. Yes. Right.

Of course I was like "Hell to the no!" when Mr Bunny informed me of this. If she wants to come and stay for a couple days, fine. No worries. But when she decides that she wants to bring her two not small dogs with her, then we have a problem. She never even used to like dogs anyway. But now she's boning the farmer with the hideous teeth, suddenly she's freaking Earth Mother, loving all animals. I mean, I could just about tolerate him being in my house, since he's already on my shit list. Why?

Well, on New Year's Eve last year, I was flat out in bed with a killer flu, so Mr Bunny was on his own downstairs, partaking of our not inconsiderable alcohol stash. He texted his sister to wish her Happy New Year, and she replied with some sort of apology for all the chaos she caused re: the Alfa...in 2009! He chose that precise moment to have a go at her, and she was replying and what not. I vaguely remember him coming and waking me up to tell me he was finally telling her off (still haven't come up with a name for her). So the next day, he is suitably hungover and I end up going through his phone, when I see a text from her boyfriend. This text tells Mr Bunny that he knows his sister worships him, so why is he having a go at her and ruining her night, and if I have anything to say to her, then I should do it myself, instead of making him send her nasty texts on New Year's Eve. Well I get stink one time, and start to cuss the place down. I mean, who the FUCK does he think he is? This WHOLE car nonsense happened before she even DREAM to pick up with him and his bad teeth and shit haircut. And he playing he want to be calling MY name in his mouth? He damn lie!

So I replied (pretending to be Mr Bunny), saying that he needs to not say anything about situations that are nothing to do with him, and that he doesn't know me, so he should keep his mouth shut, especially since I was sick in bed and had nothing to do with any texting going on. I then sent sister a long FB message, telling her that she and Mr Bunny need to speak to each other properly, instead of holding shit in and having it all unleash via text message when they're both pissed and highly emotional. I told her I am not getting between the two of them, but that they seriously had to sort out their issues, because it's not doing anybody any good. I also told her that boyfriend needs to keep his fucking nose out of this, because it is absolutely nothing to do with him, but if he want to run his mouth, he needs to get his facts straight and if he wants to call my name in his mouth again, then he better fucking do it to my face. I gave her our landline number, and told her what our movements were that day, and that I hope she called him. I also told her she is welcome up here any time and that we hoped to see her soon.

She never called. She replied saying that everything's fine and that they were both drunk, but it's all good now. Steups. I left it at that.

So now it's bad enough that Mr Man wants to come up in my house for a weekend, and have me feed him and make conversation. But for them to want to bring freaking dogs too? Nah. Not in this house pal-o. My logic is, if I wanted dogs in my house, I would have a dog. It's that simple. Our back garden is not animal friendly and there is no kennel. British weather is shit, so chances are the dogs will have to sleep inside because it will be too cold, wet or windy for them to sleep on the cobbles out back. And we all know that dogs do not sleep well in new surroundings, so there will most likely be much whining and howling. My neighbours would love that. I told Mr Bunny that I will just about tolerate having the boyfriend cross this threshold. But there is no chance in hell, that these dogs are coming into this house unless a) I am dead, b) we are divorced and he gets the house or c) I am away for the weekend and she sneaks the dogs in after I leave and is gone before I return. I did warn him though, that in the event of me ever finding out about scenario C, scenario B would soon follow.

He thinks I am being unreasonable. His solution? The dogs can sleep in the kitchen. Eh? Has he lost his damned mind? The kitchen is more or less my domain in the house. I spend a lot of time down in it, watching telly, listening to my iPods, cooking, washing up or reading. Why the hell would I want two dogs to have the run of it? Doesn't matter if it's for two days, two weeks or two hours. There will be no dogs in my kitchen. But what do I find he has told her? "Don't worry. I'll sort the dog situation." He didn't realise how stupid it was of him to say that, because I put my foot down even harder. He's lucky I didn't put it up his arse, but that's by the by.

I told my mom, and she actually agrees with me, which she never does. She thinks I'm too highly strung and have a vendetta against sister. Which I don't think I do. I just can't be arsed with her anymore. My friend V also agrees with me. She was like "No, you damn right! Is your fricking house. Who she think she is at all? Steups. An' yuh know what? Tell that fricking boyfriend he not welcome either! He too fas' an' outta place wid heself." Pure jokes.

There are some kennels we drive past on our way to the supermarket, and I always say "Look, that's where Sister can leave the dogs if she ever does want to come up to visit." And he just goes "Mmhmmm." But now it looks like I'm the one who's being awkward and difficult, when in fact I think I'm being quite reasonable. I mean, if I had a dog (or any other pet), I would never go to the Manor, for example, and take it with me. I'd make arrangements for it to be fed and watered in my absence. But noooo. I name bitch, and I'm just being so mean to poor, little sister. Steups. Not my fecking problem, yes. The fact of the matter is, the dogs aren't coming. And if she wants to push the issue, Farmer Dan will find he is not welcomed here either. I'm holding my ground here. I don't care if I come off looking like a bitch. I'll be a bitch with an ace house, a wicked car and cool hair. Fuck 'em.

If I wanted my house to smell like shit and piss, I'd have had the toilets ripped out when we moved in.

El Puente del horror!

So I've been loving driving around in my new (to me) car, LOVING playing my tapes. I've been loving it so much, I completely forgot or failed to realise that there was a six-CD changer. But seeing as I think the bulk of my homemade CDs are in Trinidad or lost forever (the two might be the same thing though), and even though I still buy CDs, I very rarely listen to them all the way through. I'm all about the playlist and the mix.

Every day I keep finding more and more tapes, including a treasure trove of 120-minute tapes; four in total. There is a tape labelled "Bunny, Spain, December 13 2001" and it's got a little car sticker on it. Do you know why? Because it was a tape I made for a road trip I took with some girls, for the December puente in 2001. Road trip? Girls? Puente?

Well you see, once upon a time, when I was a lot more fun than I am now, I was on my way back to Soria from spending the weekend in England, seeing friends, going out, dancing. I was sat at the coach station in Madrid, listening to my walkman, waiting on my coach up to Soria when this black girl comes up to me and she's like "Inglesa?" So say "Yeah." Turns out she's from the Bahamas and she's in Spain, obviously to learn Spanish. We ended up chatting for a bit, and I thought she was really nice. She gave me her number and said that she was going down to the Costa Blanca for the puente with some friends, and I should come with them. FYI, puente means bridge and it's the term given to a long weekend, when the holiday falls on a Thursday or Tuesday. When that happens, the Friday or Monday is also given as a holiday, just to avoid having to go out to work just before or after we weekend, only to be off again. It is the best invention in the history of man and I loved it. We get our love of holidays from our Spanish ancestors, obviously. During the six-month period I was in Spain, there were two puentes and Soria's fiesta de santos, which is a week of celebrations devoted to the patron saint of whatever town or city you're in. The French have the pont, which you guessed it, means bridge.

But I digress. She gave me her number and I promised to ring her to sort out the details. And I did. We arranged to meet up on the Wednesday night (my boss was mad excited for me and insisted I leave work early to get the coach to Madrid) at Madrid coach station, and get the overnight coach down to Malaga. We'd stay at the flat of a friend of theirs, go out, then hire a car and drive along the coast and just play it by ear. I'm not one for 'playing it by ear', since those things always end in disaster, but I thought "Hey, I'm 21, I'm in Spain and hot Spanish dude is still with his girlfriend. So why not, eh?" Turns out I should ALWAYS trust my instincts.

The coach ride down to Malaga was alright. It took seven hours. But they showed some films and I was able to get some sleep and had a nice chat with one of the black girl's mates. For the life of me, I cannot remember anyone's name! I do remember that she was Irish and had a crazy lazy eye. Like seriously. It had a life of its own! And they all spoke very basic Spanish. So I ended up being interpreter-in-chief. AND it also transpired that none of the fuckers knew how to drive. SO I ENDED UP BEING THE CHAUFFEUR. Now, I love driving and I'm more than happy to do it. But that goodwill evaporates when driving duties are just dumped on me with the expectation that I'll be happy to do it. That pisses me off.

Anyway, got to Malaga, got a cab to her friend's place. We had a good sleep in an actual bed, then woke up and went to get some food. Ended up in this raging club, drinking and dancing and generally having a good time. Shakira's Servicio Lavanderia had just come out, and Suerte was a huge hit. So they played that a few times, along with some Enrique Iglesias, Rosario and whoever else was popular at the time. Out with us that night, was a dude named Lucas who was great fun and a tiny bit cute. We all ended up back at their friend's place and hung out some more with everyone, playing The Score, by The Fugees, chatting drinking and having a fairly decent time. We slept, woke up then got a cab to the car rental place. This is when I discovered that none of the little shits had a licence or knew how to drive. Big, fat steups. At that point, I hadn't driven a manual car since I did my test in 1997, and I wasn't about to start back, in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road and speak a foreign language. So we had to get an automatic, and that cost more, which pissed off the other girls. They were spared a tongue lashing from me, by me speaking to the guy behind the counter, who realised that I was on the verge of letting loose a barrage of curse words. So in the end he only charged us 1500ptas extra.

We got a green Renault Scenic, which we then had to fill up with petrol. I decided that since I had had driving duties foisted upon me, I wasn't fucking paying for any petrol and basically said that. Surprisingly, they accepted that but I still had to go in and physically hand over the money, since I was the only one who didn't sound like a complete tosser when they spoke Spanish.

So we hit the autocarrera and headed for Torremelinos and beyond. We drove for about four hours. Well, when I say we, I mean I drove for about four hours. We ended up in Gibraltar, which I didn't mind so much, because I'd always heard about it and was very curious to actually see it for myself. I mean, it's a British territory on Spanish soil. That made me very excited because I knew I'd see all my British shops there. And so said, so done- Topshop, Safeway, Miss Selfridge and the like. I was able to go and buy some Jordan's Country Crisp, have a nosey around M&S and speak a bit of English with some strangers. We also took some photos in front of the Rock of Gibraltar. It was altogether a not unpleasant sojourn. However, as easy as it was getting IN, it was a nightmare getting out. You see, Gibraltar is on the coast of Spain. And so lots of immigrants arrive there by boat, from Africa, then either get smuggled out or stow away in car boots to get into Spain. So every single car has to be searched, to make sure you're not carrying any extra passengers. It took us about ten minutes to get into Gibraltar, and well over an hour to get out. Bah.

That night, we ended up in Algeciras which is an industrial port town. From there, the girls had planned to get a ferry to Mellia and Ceuta, (quite possibly they only planning they did for this sodding trip) two Spanish territories on the Moroccan mainland. I had no desire to end up there with them, so I told them I'd happily pick them up from the port, but I wasn't going to be joining them. What was even more ridiculous, was that they'd planned to sleep in the car in the port car park overnight, then jump on the ferry in the morning. I put the kibosh on that one time, and went and found myself a hotel room for the night. I told them I wasn't leaving the car at the port, because at the end of the day, it was my name on the rental documents. So they could sleep in the hotel car park or shell out for their own room. They chose the car park. This is when I fully realised what I'd got myself in to. I mean, what the fuck? Sleeping in cars in a strange town? Mental or what??? In the mean time, in my lovely hotel room, I ordered a pizza from Telepizza (one of the BEST pizzas I have ever had. When I first got to Soria, and was living out of a suitcase, I LIVED on their pizza barbacoa), watched telly and had a soak in the tub. The next morning when I went down, they were already on their ferry and I had the whole day to myself. ACES!

I ended up just driving all around, playing -of course- a tape I'd made for the occasion. I'd actually made it in November, and it contained all sorts of songs- some soca, some dancehall, a lot of Michael Jackson, Aaliyah and a few others here and there. It was blissful. I went to the Carrefour, where I bought Shakira's and the new All Saint's album, browsed, bought a top and just had a great time. I drove some more, and ended up in Estepona. Estepona is mad posh, as posh as Marbella (which is where a lot of people like gangsters and footballers have lavish villas). I parked up somewhere and just walked along the boardwalk for a bit. Then I found a little cafe and ordered some chopitos and gaz con limon. They didn't have chopitos like they do in Soria, but it was deelishis nonetheless. By the way, chopitos is squid (sort of) and gaz con limon is fizzy lemonade like 7Up or Sprite. I sat there with my magazine, read, had a little chat with the owner/cook/waiter about Trinidad, life in Soria and life in England, what I was doing down on the coast. When I was done, I walked around some more, then headed back to Algeciras to pick up the douchebags.

They'd had a great time in Ceuta and were saying that they felt sorry for me that I didn't come. I just laughed and said I'd had an amazing day anyway. But to be fair, Ceuta would be an interesting place to visit. Just not with them. It was starting to get dark, but they wanted to go to Sevilla. Seville. BLOODY SEVILLE! Seville was like five hours' drive from Algeciras, so I shot that down straight away. Plus it was away from the coast so I wasn't too confident about getting there safely. So we settled on going to Cadiz.

We get to Cadiz, only to get stuck in the most horrific traffic jam, because there's some sort of Carnival going on. I'm telling you, the Spanish influence on Trinidad is just so blatant, it's amazing. Freaking great. People are dancing outside of bars, honking horns, one guy had parked up his car and was playing music out of it. It was like being in St James. Finally, we find somewhere to park, around midnight and decide to walk back into town. They were going to join in the festivities (and of course sleep in the car afterwards), I was going to find a hotel room and have some room service and get some proper sleep. They thought I was being a diva, but I had to point out to them that driving a car four three and a half hours non-stop is brutal on your neck and back, and since the drive back to Malaga the next day would be pushing six hours, I'd need a bit more than a thirty-minute kip in the backseat. So I went in search of a room, they trundled off to get wasted. I ended up in a bar for about half-an hour, chatting with some people and getting the scoop on hotels. Found this gorgeous hotel, with lovely red velvet curtains in the lobby. That was enough for me. Didn't have room service in the end, but the bed was fabulous and the tub was amazing!

The next morning, I went back to the car at the agreed time, to find them sleeping in it. I just jumped in and got going. It was just starting to get light, so the roads were clear and I was able to get back onto the motorway easily. Luckily the douchebags were still sleeping, so in the tape went again and my smile came back. Eventually they woke up and we chatted for a bit. They dozed off again and I carried on singing along. Then it really went to hell.

Lazy-eye girl was in the front seat, and she was telling to drive slowly. Not asking. Telling. Bearing in mind I'm on a Spanish highway, people whizzing past me at a hundred miles per hour and the little Scenic could only manage about ninety. So I'm like "Look, we need to get back to hand in the car, because I'm not paying for another day's rental on it. Plus this is not fast. PLUS I actually do know how to drive. So just take it easy." She sits there in silence for a while, and the lazy eye is probably whizzing around in her head, like that dude from Harry Potter. Then she says "Will you fucking slow down!" And I tell her to shut the fuck up, unless she is legally able to take over driving responsibilities from me. Then the bitch does the unthinkable. She ejects my tape from the player and pulls out the strip. And I go fucking beserk. I pull over to the side of the road, jump out the car, and I'm like "Get the fuck out of my car! I'm not fucking driving anywhere with this fucking whore in my car! GET HER OUT!!!" The black girl is trying to calm me down, lazy-eye girl is looking at me (or behind me. Who can tell?) and I'm trying hard not to cuff her down. Black girl is like "She's sorry. She's really sorry. Look, she'll sit in the back and I'll come in the front. Let's just get back to Malaga, yeah?" So I turn around and walk back to the car and start it up. I don't even wait for them. They run and jump in, and I floor it all the way back to Malaga, with a Spanish talk-radio station on full blast.

So we get back to the rental place, and I'm handing in the keys. They chap's asking me how things went, how were the roads, etc. I just say "Joder!" and roll my eyes, and he laughs. I say a few more bad words in Spanish, we talk for a couple minutes about the coño and the puta and he laughs some more, tells me to go and find a boyfriend and have a drink. So I walk out of the office, right past them and walk past all these high-rise hotels. They're scurrying behind me, but I didn't give a shit. I ended up in this cafe/restaurant where I order a full English. Malaga is basically England on the Costa. You can get chips and beans, egg and chips, a Sunday roast and other such assorted food that kind of defeats the whole purpose of you being in a foreign country. Anyway, they sit a couple tables away. The breakfast was nice, but when I went to pay, the waitress (who was English) says "Oh, your bill's already been paid, luv."

Lazy-eye girl's paid for my food. "Should've fucking ordered the lobster then", I say to the waitress and we laugh.

I get up, walk past them and go and sit on a bench on the boardwalk. I am distraught because I have a walkman and no tape. How dare this pasty, unattractive bitch, with K-foot and no sense of style destroy what I had taken such care to make. To me, it was unforgivable. But she comes and sits next to me and is like "I'm sorry you know. It's just that I was in a bad accident when I was ten and I just don't like going fast on the motorway." I turn to her and say "This has been one of the worst trips I've ever taken. You have not helped. I will most likely not see any of you after this, so I don't really care what you have to say. You can't drive, yet you want to tell me how to drive. You wanted to get back to Malaga early, but you want me to go under the speed limit. You think I'm a bitch because I don't want to be some sort of vagrant and sleep in a car in a strange town. That's not how I roll. You don't know me that well, so don't you ever again in your life, touch my shit or I will box you down, eh." Then I get up and walk away.

The kicker was, our bus wasn't until midnight that night, so we ended up back at their friends' flat. But guess what? Lucas was there! And he actually seemed happy to see me. I realised it was because his English wasn't that great and all of their Spanish was pretty shit, so he was happy to be able to converse with someone in language an adult would use. So we're talking about the trip, when he says "Let's go for a walk." So we ended up walking around Malaga city centre, which wasn't so bad actually. We went to McDonald's, because I had to pee and he wanted a beer so we stayed there for a bit. I forget most things about him, but I remember he had grey eyes and a lovely smile, but he was just about the same height as me. We left McDonald's, walked around a bit more then started to head back to the flat. He said he was going to head back to his place, because it was getting near the time for us to head to the coach station anyway. I dreaded going back to the flat, and I was like "No! No me dejas!!" He just laughed and said don't worry, it'd be alright, and he wrote his number on the back of a tube map. Then we had a lovely little snog in the middle of the pavement and parted ways. I still have that tube map.

Got back to the flat and made our way to the coach station. They hugged their mates goodbye, I thanked them for having me and we got on the coach. I tried to sleep, watched bits of the films and basically prayed for it all to be over. When we got back to Madrid, I was the happiest I'd been in days (well, apart from exchanging saliva with a cute Spanish dude). I sort of told the black girl goodbye, and went to look for the platform my coach back to Soria was leaving from. I had a bit of a wait, and of course I had no music. Luckily, Madrid coach station isn't a total wasteland, so I walked around for a bit, bought a sandwich for breakfast, had a browse in a couple shops and checked my emails in the internet cafe.

In Soria, my boss met me at the coach station and took me back to my flat. She asked me how the trip was, and I told her it was una mierda. She said "Oh no!" and that was that. The black girl (I want to call her Stacey, but I really can't be sure if that's her name) called the Academia for me a couple times, but I always told Ana to tell her I was busy...which I was anyway. And I never called her back.

But what was one of the first things I did when I got back to my flat? Make a tape to replace the one Lazy-eye had destroyed. And on it, I put a couple new tracks on it. And that tape? I labelled it "Bunny, December 13 2001, Spain." And this is the tape I found in the shed and popped into my car stereo last week.

And that simple act brought back all these memories of a long-forgotten, ill-fated trip along the Costa Blanca. A little label on a piece of plastic and magnetic strip (with a red sticker of a sports car) reminded me of the weekend I nearly punched an annoying Irish girl but still had a nice time driving along tiny Spanish coastal hamlets on my own. None of my iPod playlists do that. And I don't have the same attachment to CDs. So methinks I'll keep my tape player going, thanks. CD changer? Nein danke. iPod auxiliary cable? Negatory. Tapes rock!

There are rumblings in the Bunny household about a replacement stereo, complete with DVD player and touch screen sat nav though. Such talk has made my blood run cold.

Mr Bunny must be stopped!!

It's as if He Knew

A black cat has taken to coming into our back garden. It's been doing it since we moved in last year. For a while, I was worried it was nesting behind the shed, but I went and had a little nosey just to make sure there wasn't a batch of kittens waiting to be fed. The thing about this cat, is that it's wicked boldfaced! It scales the garden fence and pads across the cobbles, as though it owns the joint, then goes behind the shed and jumps over into the garden next door.

But what irks me even more about this cat, is that it doesn't seem at all afraid of me. Say what you like about Mad Cat and his band of ragamuffin friends, at least they all had the decency to scram when I opened my kitchen window and shouted at them. This cat, I think I'll call it Cheeky Cat, doesn't even pretend to move any faster when I open the back door and shout. I've even thrown stuff at it, and it just keeps on strolling to the shed. It's as if he's saying "Listen bitch, I've been doing this since long before you bought this joint. So get used to it or jog on." I have not yet figured out what accent Cheeky Cat speaks in.

The thing is though, I feel somewhat comforted by this continuing of the cat tradition that seems destined to remain a part of my life, wherever we move to. Weird cats seem to follow me, so I guess that is part of my lot in life. Ah well.

Even so, Cheeky Cat must die.

Talk about your Big Bangs!

We have our new car and it's completely awesome. I love it, even though it guzzles petrol like nobody's business. It's just brilliant. I say new, in the sense that it's new to us. It obviously is not brand new, because we are not psychopaths or idiots and were not about to fork out many tens thousands of pounds for a brand new car, that would lose twenty percent of its value the minute you shake the slimy salesman's hand. So the car is used. And it's old enough that it came with a tape deck. It surprised me that so many cars came with tape deck as standard, well into the mid -noughties. Even the little work-house Focus came with a tape deck, and Mr Bunny bought that in 2006.

At first that really irritated me. I just thought the previous owner must have been one lazy bitch, if she couldn't even be bothered to install a proper stereo, Merc or not. But then I cursed my own folly and became v happy. You see, back in the day I was a most prolific maker of tapes. I remember making my first tape when I was about nine or ten. I lay on the floor, next to my parents' bed (which is where the unit was that they kept the radio on in our old house) and would wait for a song to come on and hope that the bloody DJ wouldn't ruin it by blabbing during the intro or just as it was ending. The first song I remember recording was a song called Fallen, by Lauren Wood. I don't know why I recorded that song, but I remember I liked it a whole lot. Of course there were other songs on this tape, but this is the one I remember most. In any event, and so it began.

I'd guess that over the course of my tape-making career, I've made close to a hundred tapes. Of course when tapes began to become obseolete, I moved on to CDs. This wasn't the same, since it required a lot less skill than pressing pause at precisely right moment. I could look at a tape and know exactly how much space was left and know exactly which song I could use to fill it...if there was room for a song at all. However, I became a master of mixing different types of songs. And please note, when I say mixing, I do not mean in the way a DJ would do. I'd just mix genres, speeds, artistes. Or I'd mix songs from one artists many albums. My favourite of these was my MJ mixes. This was when I truly flourished as a tape-maestro, and it also helped me get a new walkman quickly, since I would insist on my tapes being played in the car on any journey. Things came to a head in 1997, when we went to St Thomas on holiday, and my dad finally snapped and bought me a walkman so he wouldn't be subjected to constatnt replays of Human Nature and Don't Stop Til You Get Enough. It was around then that I also received my Jackson 5 Anthology, so I Want You Back, Dancing Machine, People Make the World Go 'Round and Can I See You (In the Morning) got thrown into the mix. Things got even worse (from their point of view) when I discovered that you could buy 120 minute tapes. Until then, I'd been stuck with lame 60 minute ones. But to be able to DOUBLE the pleasure and thus double the fun? Oh me, oh my! Anyway, my tapes became legendary as did my CDs. Friends would ask me to make them tapes and CDs for them to play at home or in their cars or whatever. The modern-day equivalent of this is the iPod playlist. And I am also a master at that. I have a playlist just for parties at the Manor, that ALWAYS goes down a treat.

But I digress. So this car has a tape deck. At first I thought "Hmmm. I think I'll just play my Adrian Mole" but in rooting around in the loft for those well-worn tapes, I stumbled across a tape rack. I pulled out a couple tapes- a soca mix from 1999- that I bought either on Independence Sq or in the Croissee-, and a greyish, brownish tape with no label. I'd been playing Adrian Mole for at least a couple journeys, and yesterday while I was on my way to the supermarket, it finally finished. Luckily, I'd put the grey tape into my cardie pocket, so I popped it in and off we went.

IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!!!! Side A was a Cranberries session, with all my favourites- Ode to My Family, Empty, Daffodil Lament, Dreams, Linger, Not Sorry, Put Me Down. Side B, however was a complete and total revelation. Songs I hadn't even thought about in about ten years; Big Bang Baby, by the Stone Temple Pilots, All Mixed Up by 311, Swallowed by Bush and even a couple tracks by No Doubt (but my current aversion to Ms Stefani forbade me from listening to them).

Hearing Big Bang Baby took me right back to driving around in my mom's car, just after I got my licence. Some of my happiest driving experiences have been when I've been on my own, and am not hampered by the tastes of others. My friends would never have let it rest, if I'd popped on a bit of STP while they were in the car. But I digress. That opening little guitar riff just brough it all flooding back- the cheesy video, Scott Weiland obviously smacked out of his mind, me dancing around my room singing "Life is for freeeeee! Nothing's for freeeeeeeee. Take it away booooys!" I was at some traffic lights and I couldn't help myself. I got so into it, the woman in the car next to me looked, smiled and gave me the thumbs up. The woman in the car on the opposite side of the road, waved. Meh. Whatevs.

But nothing compared to the track that followed- Naked Eye by Luscious Jackson. I had TOTALLY forgotten about them as a group, which I feel thoroughly ashamed of now. I forget exactly which year it was I fell in love with them, but I remember it was the year I worked for Claudia during the July/August holidays. I say worked, but all I really did was try on clothes and sit in the back, trying to figure out her ancient computer. I'd grown weary of hearing Enya's Paint the Sky With Stars album, so suggested to Natasha that we play something cool. Everyone loved it, and Naked Eye could probably be heard throughout Colsort Mall. I remember I loved that entire, freaking album. EVERY SONG was just brilliant. I played it at home, I played it in the car (of course I made a tape of it) and when I finally got an adapter for my discman, it was on continuous loop whenever I was allowed to drive somewhere.

So the tape was rewound and the little machiney-type opening riff played at full volume. And I was the happiest I'd been in a few days.

This then made me wonder about all the other tapes I'm sure I had lurking around somewhere. So today I went out into the shed and had a root through the boxes out there, and goodness gracious me! The secrets they unfurled! I found tapes labelled "Bunny, Spain, October 15 2001" or "Bunny, Favourites, Spain, 2001" and "Bunny, Favourites, England." Who knew my anal labelling would come in so handy, ten years later, eh? Some of the tapes had no label, and a couple had labels that had been smeared with oil or something greasy, so the writing had faded. But I managed to make out one of them, and it said simply "Rock no. 2" And you know what? I know that once I put it on, I'll remember exactly how and when I made it.

All I need now is a road trip. Happy days.

Before my time?

I was speaking to one of my best mates last night. I've known her since primary school and she is one of two people who are in the running to be Godmother. So we're just chatting about our lives, catching up properly since we only seem to be able to communicate by BBM due to the time difference and all that. So we're just talking the usual load of shit, laughing at how gay we were back in the day. I mentioned an ex that recently found me on Facebook and we had a good laugh about how he and I met and that led to talking about when we all went to a concert and a guy pissed on her hand and said ex and I got into a massive fight and he stormed off, only to return drunk, high or both, and full of love for everyone around, especially me. We guffawed at his name (he's half-Spanish) and how different his hair looks now and how he and her own ex were best mates and were almost obsessed with each other. It was weird. But good time was had by all.

Even when we 'kept it real' and talked about the hardships we're both kind of facing now. She's single, living in a foreign country (even though she was born there, she was raised in Trinidad and has no real ties to where she lives now) and has a stressful job. I on the other hand, am finding marriage to a comedian more annoying than not, have no career to speak of and am struggling to accept my new role as housewife extraordinaire. It is this last one that caused my friend the most concern.

You see, I've learned how to knit, I've started back baking and I'm going to start making jam. These are things I'm doing because I want to. I've always wanted to learn how to knit, since I never learned how to crochet. I remember during that term in between our Common Entrance exam and entering secondary school, which coincidentally was probably one of the best periods of my life, everyone would sit around talking, playing games, liming and crocheting. Since I couldn't do the latter, I was restricted to doing the former. And it pained me greatly that I couldn't crochet. My mother knew how to, both my grans knew how to. Even my elder sister could whack out a doily if she needed to. I was stuck crocheting the world's thinnest scarves. I asked to be taught but no one bothered. Ever since then, I've always said I wanted to learn to knit. This is a desire also borne out of necessity. You see, I have a big head and it gets cold during winter. And the store-bought hats are all a standard size, made for dainty heads with straight hair. I saw knitting as a way I could wear all sorts of brilliant hats, but also a way to express my limited creativity. So I made a promise that once I finished my masters, I would learn. I've made a start too, and a very admirable one at that. So promise kept.

I also promised myself that once we moved and I had a bigger kitchen, I'd go back to my previous baking ways. I used to bake all the time, mostly bread though. And I loved it. I cooked a lot, back in the day- fish stew, Irish stew, fish pie, all sorts of chicken. I even made my own pasta from scratch once. I don't think I'll be repeating that, since rolling out the dough was very trying on my weak forearms. So now that we're in the bigger house and I have a bigger kitchen, I've reverted to type. What's wrong with that? I've always loved to cook. I even used to want to be a chef! And there we have another promise kept.

Finally, I've always wanted to make my own jam. My gran used to make a brilliant guava jam and I just thought it was the best skill in the world. Then again, my gran made everything brilliantly. Her bhagi and saltfish was superior to anyone else's. Even her boiled rice tasted different. I guess that's just how grans are. So I've been checking it out online, and with my next batch of allowance, I'm going to invest in some jam equipment- jars, a jam pot, parchment lids, a couple kilos of jam sugar, a jam funnel etc- and get going. I've even found the first recipe I want to try out. Raspberry. Yummings! Of course I didn't explain this all to my friend. She was just horrified beyond belief that I even mentioned these things. She was like "Jeez, are you sure you're thirty? What the hell's wrong with you?" I did feel a slight pang of worry, like I was rushing the ageing process.

But then I realised "Hey, my gran didn't start doing all these ace things when she was fifty. She'd had to start some time and get the practice in. And that's what made her fucking brill." I'm not sure my friend bought my rationing though. She thinks I'm mental. Ah well... So I no longer see these things as me acting all old 'n shit before my time, or being boring. I'm just doing the trial runs for the future, so my grandkids can say "Ooooh, my gran makes the best cookies." Or "Oh thanks. Yeah, my gran made it for me." I mean, we all have to start somewhere, right?

I still can't believe you can buy sugar manufactured especially for making jam though.

I Put On My Happy Face

It's Thursday today, and I'm meeting a friend for lunch. It's a lovely spring day and I'm in the mood for glamour, so I'm donning my new maxi dress (again), some huge sunnies, fab earrings and my MAC shimmer. Why the hell not, eh? I mean, yesterday was Budget Day and the Chancellor has fucked us in the arse, while stroking our shoulders, and people have totally fallen for it. I mean, people celebrating because he knocked 1p off a litre of petrol? Steups. All the retailers have done is put up their prices by 1p on Tuesday, so they can put them back down today. Some douchebags fail to realise that Unleaded is still £1.36 a litre and Diesel is £1.40. But whatevs. These nice days don't come along very often here, and my need to enjoy them comes along even less often. But just to be on the safe side, I'm stuffing my blazer into my Picadilly, for when the clouds inevitably roll in. But until then, I'll put on my happy face.

Oh, woe is me!

I posted this on another blog I used to have in another life. It's something I wrote all the way back in 2005 or even in 2004, before I became all embittered and hateful. I only posted it on my blog in 2006 though. I missed Carnival at home this year, for the first time since 2007, and I was surprised at how hard it was. I really thought I was ready to stop playing mas and be a grown up. But it turns out that I know fuck all. I was ok at first, happy at how mature I was being and what not. But that was the calm before the storm. Things came to a head when I put on my Carnival DVDs, while I was down in the kitchen sorting out our lunch (kitchen telly ROCKS!). I'm clearly a masochist, but I thought I could handle it, like some sort of aversion therapy or something. Bad move. I ended up standing in my kitchen, knife in my hand, weeping at the fact that I wasn't going to be a part of the best thing in the world. Mr Bunny came in, and was like "What the fuck's happened? What's wrong with you?" Ah, his caring ways are why I married him. Anyway, down below is a decent explanation of why I feel the way I feel about Carnival. But instead of 2007, I'm aiming for 2012...finances and health permitting. There was a sort of happy ending to that though; I did play mas in 2007 and it was BRILLIANT! I came home feeling like I'd been through the wars, wearing one shoe and greasy as hell. But it was then that I knew playing mas was for me.

It's in my blood, it's in my veins. Cyah wash it off, I'm forever stained.


I wrote this ages ago, while I was still at home. Laziness has prevented me from posting it until now, but seeing as today is Carnival Monday in my country, and I’ve been listening to soca all day while feeling mighty homesick, I decided that today was an appropriate day to put it up. I’m back from home (ages ago!), but I’ve been otherwise engaged. Ah well… Here’s hoping I get back into my flow!

While on my flight home, I listened to about six hours worth of music. This was very lucky, as I thought my battery would only last for about thirty minutes. Anyway, it got me thinking about the part music plays in my life. I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. I don’t know a single Trinidadian who doesn’t like music. It’s such an integral part of our culture and our being. We’re raised with music practically from the time we’re born. I was doing my hair yesterday, and my hair girl just had a baby. By the way, he is absolutely beautiful! Anyway, her mom was looking after him while she did my hair, and she kept dancing around with him, or bouncing him on her knee in time to the music. And I realised that this goes on in practically every home. I’ve seen pregnant women in parties, jumping up and carrying on, passing on the music to their babies. From Carnival to Christmas, people write a song about everything. All the proper calypsonians write social commentary about the state of the country. We took part in music festival every two years, and had school concerts. Music is as innate in us as breathing, or walking down the street. We even walk down the street to a rhythm!

But I digress. I was listening to all the songs I had on my mp3 player, and I realised that nearly every single song on there, brought back some memory or the other. When Girlfriend by Alicia Keys came on, my mind instantly went back to the time I spent living in France. I’d borrowed that CD off one of the guys living in my halls, and listened to it quite a lot. I liked it so much, I went out and bought a copy. Then there’s Africa, by D’Angelo. Once again, another song from my time in France. I played that a lot on a Saturday morning, before I went into town. It’s such an amazing and beautiful song. I listen to it, and I’m instantly transported back to Saturday mornings in Evires. Evires was the halls I lived in. I’m coming out of those horrible communal showers, back to my room, fearing I’ve picked up some horrible infection from one of the societal rejects that lived there. I’ve just washed my hair, and I’m drying it, while dancing to D’Angelo. We Need a Resolution by Aaliyah came on, and right away, I was back in my room in Spain, getting ready for work on a morning, or killing time in between classes. I bought that CD on one of my weekends back to England, and listened to that song over and over again. Whenever I hear Butterflies by Michael Jackson, I think of early morning or late at night, since I usually kept that song on loop overnight, to help me sleep. And when any soca song comes on, my pores begin to raise and I get all homesick and nostalgic.

I’m back in town on Carnival Monday or Tuesday. My band is crossing the savannah stage. My section is waiting to go on, and we’re all pumped up and rearing to go. The security men are holding us back, waiting until they get the all clear from the stage managers. The music band on the truck next to us is getting us really worked up, and we’re practically going mad. I’m with my friends, Delise, Nikki (even though they were playing in another section, they crashed ours), Solo, and Christianne. Then, suddenly the security men break links, and let us on stage. They were singing Stampede, and it really was like a stampede. Those ten minutes we were on stage were like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life, before or since. The feeling is totally indescribable. Saying it was amazing is not nearly enough. You feel euphoric. You’re running and dancing and jumping and wining across that stage. You’re laughing and shouting at your friends and singing along to the song. You know you look good in your costume, and you feel like some sort of goddess. Some man has come behind you, and is wining and grinding on you like there is no tomorrow. You don’t know who he is, but you wine back on him. Another man might come from the front, and suddenly you’re in a “you” sandwich. But you don’t care. You might even raise up your leg and throw your head back, and get totally lost in the moment, because you never know how long it will last. They could stay there wining with you for a few minutes, or get bored after ten seconds and move on to someone else. Either way, you love it. You might lose a piece of your costume in all the melee, but that’s inconsequential. The entire year has led up to this point. You’re on the savannah stage for fuck’s sake!! I swear to God, I am playing mas in 2007, if I have to sell my body on street corners to pay for it. That may take some doing, as I don’t think anyone will really pay for my body, but if needs must… All I have to do is hear that bull horn and the opening bars of “Toro Toro” and I know I have to be there, come what may.

Like I said, I also find it very hard to sleep in silence, so I always have a radio on, keeping me company. While I was growing up, it was Music Radio 97, which plays adult contemporary and older music. Of course, growing up black in the Caribbean, this wasn’t appreciated by my sisters or brother or most of my friends. They were all heavily into dub (dancehall) and hip-hop. It was all you hear out in the clubs and stuff, and people might mock you or look at you strangely if you mentioned that you liked Al Green or knew the words to Midnight at the Oasis. I rather liked hip-hop myself, but didn’t feel the need to be bound into listening to only one kind of music. So I listened to all sorts, and I still do now. It makes me feel free, which I guess is a bit cheesy. But it’s true. Music is probably the only thing I really and truly enjoy. One of my most favourite things to do in the world is drive around in my shitty little car, listening to music. It’s great. Sigh!

So now I download my music from the internet, legally of course. I love it because I’ve been able to find all the songs that no one here has ever heard of, and freak them out by playing it really loud in my car. My latest additions have been Les Fleur by Minnie Ripperton and This Woman’s Work by Kate Bush. Two absolutely beautiful songs, that bring back amazing memories. Let the good times roll!!