Open Racism

Today I went to the post office to post a copy of Lime Magazine to my Uncle I was in it recently talking about my natural hair. Anyway behind me there was a man, he was about 40 wearing a pin striped suit he had gone grey and looked like he was visiting during his lunch break. He was with another woman who looked like she was from the office.

He said to the woman “Did you hear on the news this morning, Israel might bomb (and I didn’t hear the country name but I think he said Palestine)” She didn’t reply but then he went on “Yeah I wish they would, I wish we could drop a bomb on all those countries we need to get rid of all the Muslims the (insert derogatory name for people from Pakistan here) the (insert derogatory name for people living in Japan here) and all of those (insert a derogatory name for black people here).

The woman went bright red and suddenly found something interesting on her phone to look at and said “I don’t want to talk about this right now”

I could not believe what I was hearing! All the people from behind the counter were the people that he was saying he needed to get rid of. I wanted to turn around and cuss him big time but I had to be better than that and they had not heard him so only I was offended.

I turned around and got one good look at him so I will always know who it was, smiled and put my angry fists in my pockets.

It was sad when I saw him go up to the Muslim girl behind the counter and say “Hi darling, how are you? Having a good day?”

I really hate people like this.

Ghosts & Spirits

Wow, blogging is time consuming, especially with two blogs but this one is about life and things so let me take off my natural head and talk about something totally different.

Ghosts & Spirits - Do you believe in them?

Recently I was chatting with some of my colleagues and we talked about this topic and it reminded me of two spooky experiences I had

The first was when I was about 11 living at home. It was late at night and I was fast asleep, I had a TV in my bedroom and suddenly it switched on. Power surge? To this day I don’t think so. The volume was turned up to the loudest point and it jolted me out of my sleep and my heart was beating really quickly. I stood up out of bed to run over and turn it off before anyone else in the house woke up and it switched off.  I didn’t have a remote control for that TV so it was not on standby. I stood there for a minute or two shaking and then I heard this knocking sound I looked over to the handles of my wardrobe and saw that they were swinging gently and knocking on the doors. That was enough, I grabbed my quilt and ran into my parents room, where I made a sleeping bag on the floor by the side of their bed and slept there until morning.

Nothing like that ever happened to me again, I do believe it was a Ghost.

The second – a much nicer experience happened to me when I was about 19 years old. I was living, working and studying in Chelmsford and times were hard, I was on my own and money was so tight My father had passed away a year before and things were not good. My family were struggling financially and not in a position to help me. My wages went on rent and living costs so all my food money came from tips at work. So if people did not tip me I did not eat (always tip your serving staff). Anyway one day I was walking down the street and I had it in my mind that I would go to the cash point and get £10. So I was walking remembering all the things I had to do including getting this money. Then suddenly the wind blew and a £10 note flew right into my face. It literally landed on my cheek.  It was the strangest thing to ever happen to me.  I looked all around and there was no one in the street, nowhere the money could have came from, it was so strange.

I believe that was a gift from my Daddy.

Has anything spooky every happened to you? 

Things I learnt this month.

So I did it, I did the thing that many bloggers do and I always watched them with awe but thought that will never be me, Yes I started a new blog

This is where I have been all month, have you missed my posts? Don’t worry, I am working on a balance between the two.

My new blog is called The Natural Lounge, When I decided to go natural I visited various websites and blogs all around the net to get more information on how to take care of my hair. One thing I found was that most of the ones on natural hair were based in the US.  It was really frustrating as I couldn’t get the products they talked about, couldn’t go to the meet-ups, and I couldn’t even visit their salons.

So The Natural Lounge is  just dealing with the UK naturals. I hope to profile lots of natural women around the UK finding out things like styling tips and product information of course you overseas sista's are welcome to stop by it would be nice to get some visitors. 

Its popular already and I have only just started. I am really pleased. You can click on the image to visit.

Its good because I can keep this Angel Cake blog free of hair stuff and I can talk about life and general things….hmmmm….speaking of general things, here are some of the key life lessons learnt this month alone...enjoy. 

• Leggings are not slimming and don’t suit everyone and really don’t suit obese people oh and sometimes you can see though them. 

• Black people are not the only ones with image problems – check out this photo which I took in Thailand

• British Summers will only ever be two weeks of sun. 

• You have a friend who is homeless, father to six kids and has five baby mothers, lives in his car and has no job.  If he tells you that that someone you both know really well is no good and pretty worthless, you have to try and believe them as they know a lot about being worthless

• Some people are not that organised, can’t take direction and hate to be managed or advised.  That’s why they are still in the same place they were five years ago, it is not your problem go past them and leave them behind. Some others are really just A**holes and will never change forget them too. 

• It really is possible to live with someone love to see the sight of them every morning and miss them when you are away from them even if you have just gone to work. 

• Bread is not my enemy – despite what the slimming mags say. 

• Dried apricots are though, never eat in large quantities (I learnt the hard way prior to July but then visited them again for some mad reason this month - never again!) 

• Listening to the actual lyrics of most new songs composed in the last two years and you will quickly realise that most of them are just talking rubbish.

• I can, do or be anything I want to. 

How are you all doing??? Did you learn any lessons in July?

Giving Makes me feel good.

In Thailand our hotel was amazing, we stayed at the Centara Grand Mirage (google it)  it was a five star luxury hotel. Mr Special chose well.  There were a couple of maids that cleaned our room each morning. They also dropped in with fresh water and fresh, if not funky looking fruit every day and every evening they came back to turn our bed down and put flowers on it.

One thing I liked is that they not only cleaned but kept the place tidy, if we threw clothes on the bed, we would return to find them folded up it was so sweet. Also one day we went out and left the room safe open and not only did we not find one thing missing one of the maids came and told us about it. They were lovely.

At some point during the holiday I decided to buy them earrings. I knew that they probably were not earning a lot, especially not enough to adorn themselves with jewellery so I thought it would be a nice gift. One morning when I saw the first maid I had them in my bag, I gave them to her and even though I knew she couldn’t understand a word of English I said to her “Thank you for cleaning my room” and did the Thai thank you (lotus hands) sign. She was very composed and bowed to me and then went into her little maid cleaning room. Mr Special said he heard some excited chatter coming from there straight after. I saw the other one in the afternoon and gave her a pair as well.

Do you know that for the rest of the holiday I didn’t see either maid without these earrings in their ears? They were SO grateful. They price that these earrings cost could never be more than the good feeling that I got every time I saw these maids.

Also just before I went to Thailand, I told the guy in the JA shop that I was going and he asked if I could bring him something small back, even if it’s only worth 50 pence. We got him a fridge magnet. I dropped it in to him today on the way home. When I popped in, he and his mum were there and they nearly started crying when I gave it to them. I know it sounds a bit over the top but I think it was really overwhelming that a stranger who doesn’t know them at all, went all the way to Thailand and brought them back a gift.

It gave me so much pleasure to see both the maids and the people in the JA shop so happy. Now I truly understand this quote.

"I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver" 
Maya Angelou 

 

Yeah no toilet paper, you got to use a hose...

Look how beautiful the wall was

Our room

 I want one of these in my own house

 The bed at night

Our fruit Bowl

The hotel had a pool bar you swam to

I used to sit on those yellow things and float around all day

We ordered room service and it came with a table and cocktails

Yeah I loved chilling in the pool area

This is the hotel lobby, Mr Special took this, my photography skills are not this advanced!

I'm back from Thailand

The week before I went to Thailand I wanted to do a post, but going on holiday can be quite stressful. I found that I had SO much to do before I left I actually ended up getting very ill a few days before going it wasn’t great. This meant that the ‘goodbye see you in a couple of weeks’ post just didn’t happen. Sorry

Anyway I went and now I’m back, I’m a bit jetlagged and possibly have lots of stories to tell you but for now my brain isn’t working so I just wanted to say ‘hi im back’

Its Mr specials B-day tomorrow so we will be chilling out hope you are all well, post any questions about the holiday and when I do the Thailand post I will try and answer them.

Hope you are all well 

Angel 

Beater Brown cant come in

So Chris Brown got his Visa denied to enter the country as he is guilty of a criminal offence. His assault on Rihanna last Feb. Who would have gone to that concert anyway? Who wants to listen to someone that sings all about love and then mashes up the person they are supposed to be loving??

Remember these photos?

To be honest I am glad, perhaps he will think twice before assaulting a woman again. It for once a good call by the home office, it’s a shame they don’t make this judgement on all the drug dealers, killers, ex prostitutes and pimps that come over here to sing music.

Good Hair/Bad Hair do you care?

Last night I went to watch Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair. Mr Special joined me. This film has apparently been banned in the US because people stopped going to get relaxers and hair salons were loosing cash.



It was showing at Ritzy in Brixton and afterwards Chris was there for a quick question an answer session. Its been out for a couple of years now but it was the first time I have seen it.


At first, like many, I thought that Chris being a comedian was going to be making fun of black woman but it wasn’t that at all. Sorry for those of you who know but the documentary was made because his daughter came home one day and asked him "Daddy why don’t I have good hair?" So he decided to investigate the whole good hair/bad hair thing. He visited India where the hair is shaved off at the temple to be made into weave on hair. He visited salons where people some people were spending $1,000 on weaves! He visited the Atlanta hair show. he had a session with a scientist which showed you what Sodium Hydroxide (Relaxer) does do your scalp. (The way it burned through that chicken it was scary!) I think it was really an overview but what I did like is he didn’t take sides or alienate anyone.


It did put me off relaxer especially in the Q&A session afterwards when he talked about the scenes he took out. There was one with a coroner where they examined the scalps of black women and found that a black women's scalp who has been using relaxer for years is something crazy like 60% thinner than a white woman's. I cant remember the correct figure but I know that this stuff is eating away at your head and seeping though to your brain!


I felt sad as well when I saw girls as young as three getting this stuff put on their heads. Chris said in the Q&A that to him his daughters are perfect he wouldn’t want to change anything so he also felt sad when he was filming those scenes.


It was informative but I did feel he skimmed the surface on many of the issues especially when talking about exactly how much these hairstyles are costing us as a community. Has anyone else seen it??


Oh yeah, there were a few white people in the audience and in the Q&A a long haired white guy stood up to ask a question. Before he asked it he stupidly pointed to his head and said to everyone "GOOD HAIR!" As you can imagine I was afraid for him! The boos were loud and not good natured! Idiot man.




Read and comment online by visiting www.atasteofangelcake.blogspot.com

I Love Birthdays

I love birthdays

On my birthday this year (May 15^th) I opened my eyes to see my favourite person staring back at me. Mr Special kissed me a happy birthday and made it a good start to a great day.

When I opened his card it said “To My Wonderful Girlfriend, of all the things that I’ve heard said and all the words I know, the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard was when you said hello”.  With that he had drawn two stick people inside, one me and one him with salsa music in the background and I was saying “Pleased to meet you” it was lovely.  The day was nice and we went to lunch and did some shopping.

In the evening I went to dinner at Floridita with some friends. For those of you who are not London based it’s a beautiful Cuban restaurant with dinner and a live band. It was eventful to say the least but fun. After a few mojitos I was in very high spirits. We danced for a while but as my crew do not all do salsa we decided to slink off to another club.

At the other club, as I was walking in the bouncer on the door said to me “ID please?”  I couldn’t believe it and he was serious.  He thought that I was under 18. Let me tell you all now that this was a big birthday so when he said it I just threw my head back and LAUGHED. I didn’t even have a handbag let alone ID. Mr special had all the money and the keys and everything so I didn’t come out with anything at all. For a second I was worried and then I think because of my sheer amazed reaction the other bouncer said to him “just let her in mate”  Inside the club I danced all night and we didn’t get home until after 4am.

Today has been relaxing I have lots of flowers and cards at home and though the texts, voicemails phone calls and facebook messages I have felt the birthday love so thank you everyone.

Right now I’m, pretty tired so that’s why you are not getting a more descriptive story of the day and there are probably a few mistakes in the text but I want you all to know that that I’m contented and happy and really looking forward to the next year. Its going to be a huge journey….

Much love x 

I’m in love with my hair and stuff

So as I’m not really going to talk about the cases that I was on during Jury service, you guys are right it’s probably too dangerous and who knows who will be reading but I will tell you that it was brilliant and if you ever get the chance go and do it.

Today I wanted to just to a post all about my hair as I am in love with it, its growing madly its like a blooming flower but I realised that a whole page on Angel’s hair might be boring so here is a picture of it last night before I went to bed.

Then to pad out the post a little I should tell you that, Mr special and I are going to Thailand in June.  I can’t wait, we were wondering if we should cancel as they were having some drama over there but now its all over, have you ever been to Thailand?

Also we have a family cat that lives at my mums called Mille, I love that cat, we all do, last week she went missing and my Mum has spent the week looking for her, its been really upsetting to be honest. She put posters up and called all the cat shelters and everything. Every day I have been calling to find out any news on her and then today the postman brought her home he found her miles away crying under a bush.  Nice Postman huh? Not in my neighbourhood I tell you.

That’s it really…although I could tell you more about my hair if you wanted lol

To talk or not to talk???

Were you wondering what happened to me? I went off on Jury Service and you didn’t hear from me again. Well in truth I have been so so busy its been crazy but I thought I would start filling you in on my life by telling you about Jury Service. We can actually talk about the cases once they are over and the outcome has been decided but I don’t know if I should because I don’t want to make myself a target….Would you post about the cases? I was on three different ones and In probably have a lot to say but don’t know if I should…comments?? 

Guilty….Or Not, I get to decide.

I got a lot of hate emails regarding my Jagged Edge Post, Yes very sad I know...I couldn’t stop laughing, people kept telling me they were going to kill me and all sorts, I guess there are die hard fans out there that no one knew about. One comment said “Who are you to judge?”

Well actually…from tomorrow I am on Jury Service. I have been called up for a minimum of two weeks. So haters (I’m sticking my tongue out!)  I will get the chance to judge. Obviously not on that particular subject (lol) but as soon as I am sworn in I get to listen to some murder or fraud trail and decide if I find the person guilty or not.

I’m pretty daunted by the whole thing and I’m sitting here thinking about it and what it will be. I really don’t want any case involving children I don’t want to be traumatised. I also don’t wanna be on any case that involves me having to stay in a hotel away from Mr Special for my own protection. That would stink.

The only good things are the hours are 10-4 so really short days, I get the two weeks off from work and they pay all my inconvenience costs as well as lunch every day. So those things are ok.

So have any of you ever been on a Jury?

Ok so now I’m impressed with facebook.

In 1999 my father died (he had cancer). He was not in contact with any of his family at all so with him died all knowledge of any of his side of my family. The story is that his own father was abusive so as soon as he could he got away left Jamaica and never went back and never contacted anyone only his own mother. His death was hard as we didn’t even have anyone to contact to tell them he had passed. We could find no details on his mum.

I spent many years trying to trace his family but there were so many dead ends and his own fathers name wasn’t even on his birth certificate and I couldn’t find his mum anywhere. In the end I gave up. However every now and then I did wonder where they were, I knew he had sisters and often wondered if perhaps I was passing them on the streets and didn’t even know.

He had an address book with people in Jamaica in it, but no phone numbers. I wrote to these addresses and never got a reply.

Last week to my amazement I was contacted through facebook by a lady who is my cousin, my Dad’s niece!! She contacted my brother who gave her my name and I started to check her out.

At first I was sure she got my name from many of the family tracing websites I had placed my name on. But as we got to talk properly I realised that she had searched our fathers surname, found my bro and then found me. I spoke to her and my aunt. I nearly cried when I realised that they had been actively tracing us for years too. My Grandmother had a photo of my dad with all us children on it and they still have that photo.  No wonder I couldn’t find my Gran, she changed her name before she died.

They are living in Boston USA and they gave me the names of my fathers seven sisters and where they all were at, some in Jamaica, some in Canada and some in USA one has also passed away.

These people are most definitely my family, they named many of the people that are in my dads address book and told me a lot about him when he was young. I am so excited, I just don’t really know what to do next...

Facebook is brilliant, I guess you can find anyone on there so if you are looking for someone, make that the first place to start!

I was robbed by Jagged Edge :(

Since the first Album I have been a fan of Jagged Edge (JE) so you can imagine my delight when I heard they were coming to London to launch a new album. They were playing last night March 21st at Indigo2.

Seeing my excitement Mr Special got us some tickets as a gift to me and I was hyper. I dusted off all the CD's (as now most of my musical is digital I have no need for CD's) and played their music all week, I’m sure that Mr Special was starting to get tired of them as he wasn’t really a fan like me.

On Sunday I was looking forward to it and even becoming stressed as I had no idea what to wear. When we got there at 7pm and I saw the queue I couldn’t believe how many people had come out to show them love it was going to be a good concert.

Because of the size of the queue and the fact that they had not started letting people in we didn’t really get into the venue until after 8pm, we handed in our coats and got a really good spot right at the front facing the stage. There was a DJ playing with Kat from Choice FM hosting and they were playing some serious tunes like Joe, 112, Usher, oh it was good.

There was a long line into the place...

The first warm up act came on, some dude tried to sing Jodeci I wasn’t that impressed (there are some tunes you should never cover) and although he was ok the crowd just wanted to see JE and didn’t really care, but sadly one after another crappy warm up acts kept coming on. You got the impression that they picked the warm up acts from a Brixton Talent Show lol. No one had ever heard of them and as time went by on the crowd started becoming restless, some people had been in the queue since 5pm!

At around 10pm (Remember we arrived at 7pm) people were starting to get annoyed and Mr Special said to me "babe I don’t care who is coming on next but if it aint JE I don’t think the crowd are going to be happy" it was getting late and people were getting irritated so unfortunately for the next guy when they announced him everyone booed and started chanting 'We want Jagged Edge' He tried to talk to the crowd and make us happy but it was too late, if it wasn’t JE we were not going to be interested so to keep us happy they came on.

When they came on the excitement of it meant that you didn’t notice but they were not at all dressed for the occasion, they looked like they were just going to the corner shop, one was missing, there was only three of them on stage and they also sung with a PA not a live band.

However I was caught up in the excitement and jumping and screaming, the music was great! They sung 'Promise' and then 'Hard' and then 'Where da party at?' and then lets get married and then a couple more and then...…..well then….then they left.

Less than half an hour on the stage a few songs and done….WTF?

I was gutted, no, really gutted, like I want to cry gutted, I have been a fan for 13 years! Luckily I wasn’t the only one, as we waited thinking it was some joke and they were about to come back on the realisation that we had just been stung kicked in and people started booing louder than ever and chanted "we want refunds"

Today I was telling my friend about it and he said "hold on, are you sure it was even them?" lol

Sweet Dreams

I have a very artistic friend called Georgina I met her years ago when I modelled and appeared in a photoshoot for her. She designs beautiful bags under her brand called Evoke and always has loads of creative ideas when it comes to business of all different types.

Here are her bags

She went off the radar a bit last year and I had so much going on in my life I didn’t really keep in contact, so it was a delightful surprise when she told me that she opened a Sweet Shop.

It’s called Sweet Tooth and is in Brixton Village. She opened it in December but my busy ass only got chance to visit it a couple of weeks ago. My mum makes Jams and she is also stocking those.

You can see mums Jams on the shelves

You know when you walk into a place and it has a really nice vibe? Well this was one of them, I walked in and she had a table in the middle and children making badges as part of an activity day she was having. Then she was there looking great and just seeing her in there, doing her own thing made me feel quite proud and inspired.

It left me wondering about my own life and how I would feel if I was doing my own thing, I reflected on this post now I know that although I’m happy I am not living my dreams or feeling fulfilled. I guess its time to take stock of my life. How are you doing in yours? Are you doing everything you always wanted to do?

Yum Sweeties

This is Georgina

The shop is Sweet Tooth, Unit 66, 4th Avenue, Brixton Village, Coldharbour Lane, London, SW9 8PS

I was so busy chit chatting I forgot to buy some sweets!! – sorry Gina x

I’ve gone all natural…..

When I first relaxed my hair as a teenager it was healthy and took to relaxer well, I relaxed it on time for years and years spending a whole heap of cash on treatments and trims and to be honest it looked great. It was easy to manage and style and I did enjoy having it.

However in 2008 my hair decided to protest and it started breaking all over the place I had short bits and long bits and even bald bits. I started to do a little research on my hair and realised what the chemicals were doing to me and my head. I also took a little look into my life and realised that I really needed to start taking care of myself.

I realised that hair is not forgiving and I didn’t want to get older and have a hairline back to my ears.

So I decided to grow out the relaxer and in December 2008 I braided up what was left of my hair and let it grow out.

In the meanwhile I read every blog on natural hair that was going many are in the blog list on the left of my page. I watched all the you-tube videos I could and started to learn more about taking care of my own hair it its natural state and last month I took it all out.

Ok so it’s a learning process for me right now but I am learning to style it myself and here it is, in its full glory….

What do you think????

Thoughts for Thursday....

This week at work we were all called into an emergency meeting, the whole floor was summoned.

One of the guys that has worked there for years, someone that we all know well died. He was away in Australia on business and found in his hotel room. He leaves behind his wife and two young children ages 2 and 6. He wasnt old at all.

The reaction afterwards was really upsetting, many were devastated it was so surreal. Some had to go home it was not good.

In my opinion this guy gave his life to our company and he worked really hard. He also died working for our company. The whole thing makes me take a step back and revaluate my life.

I thought of all the hours I have been working lately and the stress that I felt and wondered if I too was stressing myself into an early grave. If all I'm doing is working what will be left in the end? Will that be me alone in my hotel room gasping for my last breath?

Do you work to live or live to work?

When you pass what you leave behind? What differences have you made to the world? How will you remembered?

Are you enjoying your life? Are you taking care of your health?

Just some things to think about today…..

Angel

It’s not a black thing - it’s a crap thing Part 1

Takeaways

When the new West Indian takeaway opened in my area a year ago I was beaming with pride. Judging by today’s behaviour, I doubt they really researched location, I think it was more luck that they found that spot. One of those chicken shops had just shut down and they took over it. It’s in a great location, right on the walk to the tube station it should catch commuters on their way to work and their way home. The food that I have had is really tasty and the prices are just right. Every time I visit I notice with delight how the food appeals to all, Asian, Indian, English, Irish in fact I have see all races in there. Sounds great right? It sounds like that’s the place to be.

Well let me tell you that this particular takeaway has the worst customer service you can ever imagine. I don’t know if they just don’t want to make any money and want to scare their customers away but it’s really bad. You walk in and you’d be lucky if you get greeted. In fact when you enter they almost look annoyed. Depending on who is on the counter expect no eye contact and when you place your order wait around 45 seconds for it to be acknowledged. Even when you order they may or may not have the food, even at lunchtime they may even say “it nah ready yet” or tell you that the cook hasn’t arrived. They also run out quite a lot of most of the things you want to eat, they never open before twelve missing all those commuters going to work who would gladly grab a little something for their journey to work or their lunch. By 10pm expect that most things would have run out.

I had the pleasure of calling them to find out if they could do food for a party. When they answered the phone they said “Yeah?” so to be honest I didn’t even know if I was calling the right place. They then told me to call back tomorrow three times and that they didn’t have the price?? I was not impressed.

When I mentioned this behaviour to a few friends around me they said “it’s just a black thing, that’s how all our takeaways run” well sorry but its not good enough, we need to come correct!

This is not an isolated incident although I wish it were, I have visited many black owned takeaway places, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Jamaican etc in all areas and sadly they are all are equally as bad. I don’t know what it’s like in other countries. The food is good in these places but everything else lets them down.

Also don’t they have some kind of a vision, don’t they ever want to be better than just a takeaway? Don’t they want to do more than just break even? Can the owner picture themselves in a Mercedes? Don’t they ever want the ability to replace that broken TV they have in the corner or fix the extractor fan so that the windows don’t all steam up and no one can see inside? It’s frustrating.

Around 15 mins away there is a fish and chip shop, go there anytime night or day and there is a queue coming out of the door, they have done so well that they have won awards and have now opened a restaurant next door. They never run out of food. They have even expanded to sell fresh uncooked fish to people. They venue is nice and clean and well tiled with plants and décor inside. It’s a place that you actually want to go. There is even seating in the waiting area.

Its 2010 is it not time that our takeaways fixed up?