Weekend Bonanza Part I

Saturday, I was supposed to meet Kathy, a very good friend from my secondary school days in Wesley Girls, in Brighton. The weather decided that it was a good day to be uncooperative. It kept raining and the atmosphere was just grey and depressing. I didn’t want to leave the house. However, Kathy had already set out. Then, as if clueing in to the weather and sharing in it’s sadness, my phone signal went out, and I couldn’t make or receive calls. Of course, I didn’t know this till about an hour later, and then I began to panic that Kathy might have arrived, waited for a while, and thought I wasn’t coming. I didn’t know whether to stay or go. I decided to go, then started worrying whether I should just go back with her to her London apartment or come back home. I thought I would come back home, so I just left with my handbag and an umbrella. I walked up to the top of the road where the bus stop was, and decided not to walk to the train station because I wasn’t really sure how to get there although it had been pointed out to me, and I was already a couple of hours late. So, I waited for the bus with this young man who was dressed in all black, had tattoos on both arms and was finishing up a cigarette. I asked him which bus to take to get to the train station, and he said all buses went there, so I got on the next one, paid my fare, and got down at the station. I bought a return ticket to Brighton, because once again, I was deluding myself that I would be back home that evening. Why do I say deluding? Because I haven’t seen Kathy in six years, and I knew that we would want to spend a lot of time catching up. It was already 4pm when I got to the train station, which meant that we wouldn’t have a lot of time together before it got dark. Silly silly Denise! Wasting money on a return ticket. Teeheehee.

I had to switch trains at Three Bridges, which is pretty close to Gatwick Airport. Twum called me while I was on the platform and we had a really fun conversation. I got to Brighton at almost 4pm, and picked Kathy out immediately because she is tall. J She has always been tall. She is now 6ft tall. Yup! Pretty intimidating for most guys, especially Ghanaian guys who are usually of average height. We walked down to the center of the town, to Pret A Manger, where one of her friends worked. We asked for a good place to eat and were directed to a Chinese buffet restaurant nearby. Kathy and I had a lot of fun, chatting and filling up on Chinese food. After lunch/dinner, we went into the shopping mall and got a few things we both needed, then went back to Pret A Manger to meet up with Kathy’s friend. Two other friends had turned up, and we had a grand time poking fun at each other’s secondary schools. Kathy and I left Brighton around 7pm I think (it could have been 8pm), and took a train back to London, where we got off at East Croydon, which is on the outskirts of London in one of the zones. I don’t get the zone thing.

Anyway, Kathy has a house that she lives in with her siblings and a cousin. Really lovely house in Thornton Heath. I went in and met them, and Kathy mentioned that there was a Ghanaian restaurant a few minutes away. I wanted to eat banku and okro soup. I don’t know why, but each time I hear about a Ghanaian restaurant, the first thing I want is banku and okro soup. So, after we had relaxed a bit and I had gotten to know the rest of the family, we went out to the bus stop and went on to the restaurant, called Baba Foundation, a Ghanaian community center. On the bus ride there, we encountered quite a few Ghanaian men who proceeded to propose to us and ask us out on dates. LOL! They complained when I told them I was married, saying that all the Ghanaian women they met claimed they were married. It was pretty funny.

I got my banku and had it to my satisfaction, to Kathy’s amazement, since it was almost 1am. Oh yeah! It was that late. A friend of Kathy’s, William, came to join us after he closed from work, and we went upstairs for about ten minutes to dance to the hiplife songs they were playing, then we left in William’s car back to Kathy’s house. We didn’t go to bed till after 4am. Lovely night.