IT IS WHAT IT IS.....

So it all started with a Whatsapp chat between myself and my cousin, Dela when she invited me to join her for  a ‘Soul Weekender’ at Butlins, Bognor Regis.

Now I have visited Butlins, Bognor Regis when the girls were much younger it was our go-to cheap ‘n’ cheerful holiday resort during summer. Usually a 4 day break, self catering apartment with lots of activities for the children. They loved it. So Dela’s invite brought back nostalgic memories. I have over the years heard about Butlin’s Soul weekender and I could recall some colleagues of mine had attended one a few years back and I remember the countdown in the office as they prepared to go. They attended this long weekend Friday through to a Monday and we heard nothing else apart from this trip when they came back for days! At the time I was rolling my eyes🙄

Dela & Moi - First evening

Now I find myself with an invite to attend one with my cousin 👀 

A few of you may recall that a few years ago I blogged about Dela coming forward as a potential kidney donor for her brother Tayo. Her experience led her to found a charity, Gift Of Living Donation (GOLD) to raise awareness and educate people within the black community about living kidney donation. She sure has a few notches on her belt and is a Pride of Brent award winner for her outstanding contribution to the Borough in the area of organ donation and a member of the living donor transplantation 2020 Strategy Implementation group. 

Waiting to check-in- Day 1

Dela, my fingers hurt as I type but I’m ‘bigging’ you up so when my readers see all these pics and videos of you dancing from Friday through to Sunday, they’ll know you’re one girl whose shoes are allowed to make’ ko ko ka’ if you are Yoruba you should remember the song about shoes making ko ko ka sound...if you’re not please find out! 

Anyways, I’m so happy when Dela tells me she’s opted to stay at one of the Hotels on the resort ie Ocean Hotel, rather than a self catering apartment. She then forwards me a link about the Soul weekender at Butlins and among artists performing are DRUM ROLL........ 

Maxi Priest of the ‘I just wanna be close to you’ fame, 

Kenny Thomas of the ‘Thinking about your love’ fame, 

Heatwave of the ‘Boogie nights’ fame 

Odyssey of the ‘Going Back To My Roots’ fame and then wait for it.....

Boney M of the ‘The brown girl in the ring tra-la-la-la’, By The Rivers Of Babylon fame. (By the way all these above artists are the real thing and NOT tribute acts. We did have a Whitney and Kool and the gang tribute act though and late Whitney would have been proud as the lady held her notes)

I am excited and wondered if the Boney M members would all be all knocking on 80 years + ( this turned out not to be the case, though the group actually retained one original member Michelle can’t remember surname, Google is your friend. She was as fit as a fiddle and as ‘lepa’ as they come. They also have a hyperactive substitute for the guy that was in original group. I chuckled to myself as I watched him jump around the stage remembering the joke/myth/lie that Boney M was originally meant to be an all girl band of 3 sisters but their mum insisted that their junior brother joined them😩

As usual I have digressed but as you know with me it all about the detail. Now what is a Butlins Soul Weekender? This led me to Butlins website “Live Music weekend 3 nights break, a great time for adults to let their hair down blah blah blah”

Ready To Roll - 2nd evening💃🏾💃🏾

Dela was insistent we get the train rather than drive down as she felt it would be more fun and it was. A good thing too as this was the weekend of the fuel scarcity. As we were coming from different areas we met up at East Croydon station on this Friday morning and continued journey to Bognor. My first shock was her suitcase was bigger than mine! I had taken pride in squeezing my stuff in a cabin size suitcase thinking that was typical Dela but how wrong could I be, she has a large suitcase and has no apologies for it! And guess what? She has brought a toaster along for bread🤦🏾‍♀️ I felt cheated as the main point of travelling light was to prove to her I was not one of ‘us’ that must carrying everything on holiday. I packed only one pair of shoes and wore my trainers. 

We arrive at Bognor Regis station and get an Uber to the Butlins. During a walkabout one morning we stumbled across the same train station it was a mere 20 min walk from the resort. In fact on our return journey when Ubers were scarce we decided to walk to station instead. 

Admission is not allowed in to resort before 1pm and we arrive at 12:45 there are a number of people already at the gate and the banter begins, people are in top spirits, very chatty and just want to relax. At 1pm our Covid passport letters, apps, passes, prison release papers or whatever you call them are checked by security as we enter resort. We then ushered to a theatre where our Covid passports are checked again but this time matched against our photographic ID’s. A purple wrist band is then given to us to wear during our stay to gain access to events, shows, pool on resort and cards to our hotel room are issued. So there is no check-in at hotel itself as you have already been issued with entry card. We have 2 hours to chill on resort before access 

to hotel room at 3pm. The place is buzzing with people, we buy a cocktail and sit outside under a canopy and start snacking on some posh M&S veggie crisps Dela has brought along 🙄

Dela with some Roman soldiers📸

Now guys brace yourselves for some very lazy writing because we need to get through this blog.... so out with the adjectives as I had only planned to write 1000 words😩 and I’ve hit that already and the party hasn’t even started💃🏾 So here goes, our hotel room is lovely, I have my own ‘wing’ we have a balcony overlooking the sea. On arrival we had used our phones to scan the QR codes that were posted on signboards all over the resort to get an itinerary of all the shows, live music or DJ’s on through out our 3 day break. We unpack sharp-sharp and Friday evening we are coming for you! 

Resident DJ is playing in the main Pavillion from 4pm, we ‘pretty’ ourselves up and Dela slips on a pair of medium heel sandals and I also wear the only sandals I brought along ☹️. As we go down to hotel lobby, Dela is greeting and smiling at everyone as she does while I’m ‘franking’ my face as usual and being told by random strangers through out our stay to ‘smile hun’ loosen up etc etc 🥺

Oh Happy Days🥰

Ladies and gents we descend into the arena where DJ is playing Hits of Motown at theButlins Skyline Stage the dancing starts💃🏾 This is one blog where I will let the pictures and vids do the talking because it ‘really didn’t wot it’ for me to be writing too much grammar.  After a few minutes of dancing myself and Dela make the call that shoes we are wearing are not ‘werking’ and are more of a hindrance. An executive decision is made that one of us needs to go back to hotel to make the swap and I draw the short straw😢. Dela slides off her sandals, hands them to me and I limp back to hotel to get our trainers. I return, she slips on hers, laces are firmly tied ‘and the beat goes on...’ pun intended.💃🏾💃🏾

Dancing Shoes

It was some weekend with too many choices, which DJ to go to? Which artist to watch? different arenas? clubs, theatres featuring these stars often simultaneously. A place called Centre stage is where the main artist of evening usually performed, while there is ‘The Reds’ where the other artists performs. Whether to eat on resort or in town which is a 10 minute walk along the seafront is also a dilemma. On the Sunday afternoon we discover a Caribbean restaurant in town called Sugar’Kane, my initial biased thoughts were ‘what can this white lady know about Carribean food’ how wrong was I? We got chatting with her, her name is Karen and she told us she had opened the restaurant 4 weeks before. We returned that evening for meal to find she had sold all her food, she then said she’d cook for us if we didn’t mind waiting. We waited, good thing we did as her curried goat, jerk chicken served with rice and peas with a side salad were authentic as could be. To make up for the lack of plaintain she served with a condiment called ‘Banana ketchup’ in a bottle by pouring some of this sauce on the salad and side it just balanced the meal and tastes like it was served with dodo! We took photo of the bottle. 

Dela & Moi @ Suga’Kane 

Rubies Banana ketchup

Attending Butlin’s Soul Weekender was an eye opener and myth buster for me. A lot of my preconceived ideas and biases were erased. Particularly the idea that ‘we’ have monopoly of the soul culture. If I’m to do an ethnic divide I’d say 80% of the crowd were white, while black 20%. And boy did everybody party! I’ve always credited myself with being up there when it comes to music but found I was somewhat ‘dulling’ when it came to this ‘movement’. Once again I found myself ‘eating my mouth’ when it came to number of songs I felt I knew. While crowd constantly chanting along to Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Al Green, Temptations. 

I saw and learnt dance routines I’d never knew existed. And eventually I thought my time had come to shine when DJ blasted the first 5 keynotes of Cameos ‘Candy’ and I rushed to the dance floor thinking ‘this is my moment, I got this one, I’m going to be the star here’ alas I found myself squeezing self to get in between crowd and join along with dance steps 🥺🤦🏾‍♀️ 

Bognor Regis Seafront

I also sensed a kind of defiance when it came to all things Covid, people sure wanted to hang out it felt like they were craving human contact and I found people particularly friendly and wanting to chat. Maxi Priest spoke of the losses that had happened during the pandemic and reminding us to be thankful. 

A recurring friendly question on the resort was ‘is this your first time?’ and as we shyly responded ‘’Yes’, the reply was always ‘really we’ve been attending these Soul Weekender’s for the last 18 years 😳

Myself and Dela had a great time, Butlins Soul Weekender are held in March, Sept And November and we’ve decided that it’s going to be an annual event. Some people said they attend all 3 events every year but I’d rather make it something to look forward to annually. It was a such a memorable trip and I particularly enjoyed the sisterly bonding. Thanks Dela. 

Return Journey Day 4

When last have you let your hair down and chillaxed? 

On that note, Welcome to Black History Month and Happy Nigerian Independence day 🇳🇬 

You don’t stop dancing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop dancing~ Unknown 

💅🏾