Hope and Greenwood

Last night Mr G and I were partaking of a 2 for the price of 1 tortellini special.
Mr G had very kindly whipped up some pesto from his new money saving herb garden. He is very proud of himself, and is puffing out his chest and going back and forward to the fridge to ogle his little miracle of nature.

I wasn’t aware he had grown any basil and I am fighting the urge to bang my spoon on the decking and shout, ‘Dandelion substitution, we’ll all wet the bed you know!’

Casper and Dopes join us in the garden. Overnight they have sprouted from Janet Cranky lookalikees into towering spaghetti men, all limp limbed, no bones in their skinny jeans, with feet like The Goodies Ecky Thump hats.

Is there a special hormone that causes boys of a certain age, no matter how bright, to behave like Bedlam outpatients, to wander aimlessly through the A level years in their pants smelling of Lynx Temptation and fried chicken?

Their conversation consists of,

Chris’s dodgy dream (about Tom’s mum)
Mould in Pringle boxes (thrown by Tom at Chris)
Granny porn (left on a computer to annoy Tom)
The bogey hanging out of Casper’s right nostril (‘I’ll just go fishing’ he says)

Mr G who has been sitting silently, safe in his own sunny world inhabited by yacht porn, pies and kittens, is suddenly animated.

‘I will not,’ he says stabbing the air with his fork, ‘share my pesto moment with Bevis and Butt-head’.

I could pop down to Lordship Lane and hold HSBC up armed with a pop gun.
But I am more likely to be mugged outside by a 10 year old looking for a sugar fix.

Even if I could get through the security doors I’d have to stand behind Ethel and her jar of 563 pennies for 4 hours.

At window 2 I’d cry,

‘Gimme the money!’ Waving my Chocolate Baton menacingly.

Teeth sucking banker replies

‘Whatever’.

I have cats, 4 to be precise, I know what you’re thinking, it’s shocking, and I agree.

Once I had two sister kittens one of whom frankly had under aged sex and presented us with 4 fluffy babies.

Phantom went to a new mummy and Honey to Linda whatserface from Eastenders (and ultimately ran under a bus). That leaves me with Treacle, Pippin, Bear and Sparky.

In an effort to economise and keep a roof over their cat basket they have been punished by swapping from Hill’s to Iams. Treacle has left home, again, and Bear is sulking in a corner in a Blaire Witch Project manner.

I am collecting their fur from my bestset cardigan with the intention of darning Mr G’s socks and lining Casper’s duffle coat, in a tragic attempt to make do and mend.

I have had a letter from the bank. My mortgage has gone up by £700 a month and I have to pay £1000 arrangement fee, with the same bank, to take advantage of this once in a life time offer. I ask you. 

I am considering my options.

I could jump from the office window which scenically overlooks the cemetery.If there was a fair wind I could glide directly into an open grave.

Only this very morning, when I was making a cuppa in the HQ kitchen, there was a figure, possible death herself, wandering around the tomb stones, sucking on a Marleborough and wailing, though this might be the plumbing. I was irked by the Scooby Dooishness of the whole thing. 

But I couldn’t do it, not while there is half bottle of Gordon’s and some mini rolls in the cupboard.

I am from a generation of politeness and kindness.

A society that left its back doors open and you played in the street, without getting stabbed, until it was dark.

When Knock Down Ginger was nothing to do with happy slapping the red haired boy round the corner.

When London was more Passport to Pimlico than Grand Theft Auto.

In our house a Wall’s Vienetta was the height of sophistication and ‘wine’ was the colour for tights.

We sat up at the dinner table with pork chops, peas and carrots, followed by lemon and lime Super Mousse, in its plastic jelly mould containers, which we ate frozen. In those days Lunch was called ‘dinner,’ and ‘supper’ was considered the work of nancy boys and conchies.

We were not allowed a Vesta Curry as it was very common, as was Top of the Pops and mini-skirted Christine from down the road, who pushed her baby sister about in a pram singing, ‘Where’s yer Mama Gone’ and showing her knickers to the binmen.

I remember the dull scratch of bathing in a tin bath in front of my grandfather’s roaring fire with a gob full of Jesmona Black Bullets.  My northern chums will know that a ‘bullet’ is the name for all boiled sweets in the North East. These minty bullets were particularly welcomed by the dusty throated miners and shipbuilders on the Wear. Mr Pitchfork makes Hope and Greenwood’s Jesmona Black Bullets as did his father, and his grandfather.

My mother would be tinkling the ivories with gusto (not the 1950 cleaning agent) and my father, with a voice as brown as Bisto, would be belting out, ‘Be My Love,’ while the cabbage stewed in the pan for Sunday lunch. Disconcertingly we were encouraged to drink the cabbage water for its cleansing properties.

My parents were fine am–drammers and my youth was spent doing my homework in the warm, sunshine dust of village halls, swinging my white knee-socked legs and humming along, I was far more interested in the stage than amoebas and I longed to be up there.

It is no surprise therefore that I have dragged Mr G along to see Brief Encounter (not the film) at the Haymarket Theatre London. The quick eyed of you will spot that this is my second visit but Mr G has yet to see the wonder.

We are greeted by the commissionaire dressed in period costume, as are all the other theatre staff, and the skiffle band, including spoons. Red balloons weighted down with tea cups, red roses in the ladies, the foyer and the bar. Vintage cups and saucers are strewn around as if left behind by the previous customer.

This is a show about tea and love. What is  truly remarkable about this performance is that Naomi Frederick and Tristran Sturrock, who play Laura and Alec are, dare I voice it, as splendid as Celia and Trevor. Laura is so gentle an unassuming and Alec is charming and handsome. As the whistle blows and the last train to Churley thunders past the waiting room at 60 miles per hour, the audience rise as one, applauding wildly, to their feet, I have fallen in love with the Doctor, and want to snog his trilby off, and must remind myself that any man with feet this clean must indeed travel from the other platform.

Back in Regent Street, 2008, I’ll wager that within 2 months of elopement Laura would be moaning about Alec’s nose hairs (‘I will remember every nose hair, always, always to the end of my days’) and swooning about on platform 6 looking for a newer, warmer buns.

Bring the car round and whisk me back to 1946 when folk fought for their right to Banbury cakes, ladies wore gloves, men wore hats, and the value of a teenager’s life was placed higher than a throw away £3 Primark vest.

Mr. G and I work hard, we work really hard, we work our polka dotted bottoms off.

Let there be no mistake about it, owning your own business can be worse than a mud pie of a walk over Hadrian’s Wall in a blizzard, wearing flip flops.
Worse than giving birth to quads in the freezer aisle of Aldi in your best dress with your Manolo’s hooked over the fish finger section.
Worse than The Duke sending Sweetheart Funbags to the airport, when what they really wanted were Jelly Babies, and our driver Bertie Bassett having to drive to Manchester and back with 5 minutes notice, and only 10 fags to his name.

This week was one of the most stressful weeks in the history of H and G.

With my sleepy head still on the pillow Mr G, delivers a morning basket of warm delights such as,
‘Does the posh store really want frogs in a cube? Is there no end to their demands?’
‘Do all chocolatiers dress like Rupert Bear and deserve a whipping?’
‘Where are my glasses/phone/wallet/car keys?’

At bedtime he serves a double brandy nightcap of,
‘Did I really need to eat 12 chocolate brazils to wash down the 2 for 1, temptingly close, Tesco Metro cream cakes?’
‘Are we the only business in The World to have employed a book keeper who has bankophobia and can’t go through the security doors?’
‘Shuffle over here chubster, and let me fluff your mallows’.

In the interests of sanity Mr. G and I are trying very hard to find some time in which we do not talk about, or think about, Hope and Greenwood. We are taking a Saturday each and arranging treats of the kind we have never experienced before. This weekend it was my turn, so I decided to take Mr G to a strip club.

I was a little worried about booking Volupté, there were inner reservations that I might find myself in the sticky carpeted Queen Anne Pub, Vauxhall, on a fireman’s stag party night with Lolita Love Handles and Tracey Tummy Tuck (mothers returning to work) doing their thang with footballs and a live eel. But no, this Afternoon Tease proved to be one of the jolliest matinees I have ever had.

Volupté is situated in an unlikely location just off Fetter Lane London EC4. A place where one might suspect ladies of the night once had their innards used as Christmas Decs.
I am wearing my Vivienne Westwood red patent, high heels. Mr G is appalled. When he presented me with them three years ago he said, ‘See, there is a God’ and he was right, though this particular pair of deities is so rude that I have never been allowed to wear them beyond my boudoir. Well stuff that for a game of, ‘Eyes off my wife, if you know what’s good for you’, and other roughy toughy, my tattoos are bigger than yours, threats. I am wearing them Mr G, get over it.

We are escorted downstairs to an underground ‘tea room’. It’s a surprise, it’s pink and pretty. There are glamorous Nippies in black and white wiggly frocks with hair frills. Most surprising is that the audience largely consists of ladies, ladies with the best shoes in the world. Never have so many ladies come together in a bunker, having dug deep for victory, to reveal a cornucopia of footwear, from gold strappy 1950s dance shoes to two tone teetering Joan Crawford’s. This is not the place to parade peasants’ ankles.

There is a gaggle of a hen party, they were up at 6 and on the Yorkshire Flier making a jolly show of themselves in red feather boas, seams and fascinators and some delish’ Bette Davis vintage frocks. Across the way gorgeous, bouncy breasted ladies have employed a shire horse and WD40 to ease them into their satin corsets and I wonder how they will find room for cake. Next to us is a dull, ditch drab hiding behind her hippy boyfriend, they stick out like Lena Zavaroni at a Krispy Kreme Doughnut party, they have clearly avoided the deodorant shop and there is no excuse for a TU fleece.

Sandwiches and Champagne arrive. I have eaten better fayre but frankly who cares, the finger morsels are overshadowed by the lithe, red headed beauty, Miss Golden De Licious, who bumps and grinds her particularly agile bottom until she is down to her pants and fruity pasties. Mr G’s is having a caliption, I am having a ball.

Then there is cake, lots of cake, cake on cakes stands and warm scones and cream. I am quaffing a Marguerita; it is 3.30 in the afternoon and I am settled in and rather fluffy, chuckling deeply into my tippet. Mr Greenwood is choking on his tea, I am wondering if this was a wise choice for the afternoon and whether his poor heart can suffer any more nudity, but he finds his inner trouper and struggles on.

Liberty Pink is Fabulous with a capital F. At last a turn who keeps her bosoms inside her leopard skin frock, relying on talent over tits. She sings like an angel and has the smile of a demon. She belts out 50’s hit after hit and I have possibly fallen in love with her (one day I will tell you the story about the implications of having a ring finger which is longer than your pointer finger).

Three hours go by and before I can say ‘My name’s Gypsy,’ we stumble out into the harsh daylight. We have had the best afternoon imaginable. Nothing bad could ever happen at Volputé, it is as safe as John Lewis, if the bomb drops this is the place to be, Marguerita in one hand and a cuppa in the other.

I cannot however say the same of East Dulwich.

On Monday morning we rise to a call from Miss Opal Fruit - our beloved North Cross Road Shop has been broken into and stripped bare. Some low life has taken the safe in its entirety and the weekend’s takings with it. What did we ever do to you that you would punish us for working so very hard to do something so special? I despise you.

You have made me cry, but it is far, far worse than that, you made Mr Greenwood cry, my rock of a husband is at the end of his tether, and for that alone even my big heart will never forgive you.

You may now dear ladies have what you think is an in depth view of Mr G and his various foibles.
But I must alert you to his Sleeping With The Enemy tendencies. It will shock you, so prepare to burn some feathers. I am not permitted to drive the car (while he is in it) possess my own door keys, office keys, shop keys or indeed carry spendable funds.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that we little ladies are rather foolish creatures whose breasts clearly break free from their Bravissimo halters and fall across their eyes, amply in my case, blinding them from all tasks far better dealt with by a man with a Braveheart hairy chest and a todger so magnificent in length and girth that no boy pants can adequately house it.

So Mr. G has decided to exercise his domination prowess and take me sailing.

It is a relatively calm day when we pull into the waste land called Chav Central Boating Centre.
We crawl into the car park teaming with single men and their dogs, some had pets too, and the sticky back doorstep of Joolies Night Club is glistening in the early morning sun.

The boating swamp is surrounded by Murder Flats begging to be demolished, the kind of abode where yellow tape is de rigueur. It is frequented by, ‘Chantel Come Home,’ types in Mark One singlets and hoopy earrings, tramp stamps poking out from the tops of their Matalan Juicy Couture tracky bottoms and those dogs common people have with skin that is too small for their bodies. There are children not yet out of their Hi-Tecs pushing their dirty faced earringed babies in prams with wonky wheels to the pub. These people know nothing of Swiss Chard and have never owned a salad spinner.

Instinctively I realise that I do not belong.

We u turn to Savacentre and purchase velour hoodies as I am fearful that my crinoline and petticoats may be unsuitable for boating and I may end up shanked in the chest. The camouflage tactic works just fine and dandy and on our return the nice people are kind enough to offer us some sea sickness tablets called Captain Catamarans round the back of the fire escape.

Kevin, our instructor, is lean and rather jaunty, he is also under the misapprehension that Mr G and I know how to sail. We don’t have the foggiest. Our fellow sailors consist of Bert,  - with an ‘Aha! Jim lad!’ face, the lesbians Claire and Jo, and Sally the chatty one.

Without wasting a second Mr. Greenwood demands complete control of our vessel and he is rubbish, entirely, utterly and sensationally rubbish. I have never seen anyone be so rubbish and be so very angry that he is rubbish. After all he has read all the books and spent hours playing, ‘Man Overboard,’ in the bath.

He pushes instead of pulls, gybes instead of tacks. Not only that but he has bought ordinary Kit Kats instead of peanut butter ones. Is there no end to the man’s failings?

To prove to Cap’n Jack, the lesbians and verbose girl that he is goddamn Ellen pass-me-another-tissue MacArthur, with superior tackle, he refuses to let me helm and sticks out his barrel chest proudly, his chins held high, his baldness blowing in the wind, as we fail dismally to round yet another dead cat.

And then it happens. We come to a mid pond halt, a do not pass go, do not collect chicken and stuffing sandwich and Ribena from ruck sack, full stop.

We are going nowhere. I am subjected to a plethora of dole scum expletives, threats to my lady garden and my children’s fingers, divorce by decapitation, under skirt plundering and a resignation letter written in bile. He is at the point of vomiting up his Banana and Custard Muller Light when the swarthy Kevin starts simulating

‘Use your oars,’ or perhaps,

‘Dig your grave,’ from his dry position on the shore.

Our sailing friends hold their sides, point and guffaw loudly, ‘Drown, you chubby confectioners, drown!’ Mr. G is now as HYSTERICAL as Miss Rosey Apple when the poxy suppliers fail to deliver Shrimps and Liberty needed them yesterday. (One day I will tell you the story of the Courier, the Tantrum and the demise of the Jolly Eggs).

Quick as a loris I push my wayward bosoms away from my eyes and grab the oars. I paddle as fast as the fat boy in Deliverance, Mr. G is now squealing like a pig and the lezzers are playing their banjos on the bank (this is not a Sappho euphemism).

There is nothing, nowt, bugger all, and I am anticipating blowing up my pyjama bottoms and making like that water hippo Miss Shelley Winters.

Minutes like hours pass. Mr. G whittles a Welsh love spoon and I knit a jersey. Swarthy Kevin jumps into his James Bond speed boat and effortlessly whizzes over the pond towards us.

It takes but a moment for Kev’ to point out that Mr. G has sailed onto the fluorescent marker buoy and has actually anchored us as firmly as the Queen Mary to bottom of the pond. It takes but another moment for Kevin to whip out his boy stick and unhook us from our swampy prison.

We limp to shore where our shipmates commiserate,
‘It’s Ok don’t worry. We’ve all done it, it’s was just an ickle mistake.’
When what they really mean is,
‘We are all far better than you, even the one with the eye patch, you jumped up sweet sellers, we saw you and your jolly shop on Supersizers 1970s episode. We are all going out for a Breezer and Kettle Chips and you are not invited. We hope your business sinks like the Titanic, we hope you get swan poo poisoning, it’s all you deserve, you overweight losers.’

Back in the car Mr. G says,
‘That was great fun, let’s join the yacht club’.

Toss pot.

Mr Greenwood is possibly the laziest husband I have ever had. His ex wife, 10 years after the divorce, felt the need to tell me that in 20 years of marriage he had never cleaned the windows. Well nothing has changed.

I say,

‘Have you considered the possibility of mending the big hole in the roof and the repairing the plaster in the en suite? Very soon I will be able to talk to the neighbours directly and whilst I like them I should not be revealed before 8am to just any Tom, Dick or Harry’.

He hears,

‘Merlot?’

I say,

‘Mr G have you considered popping to a shop at all as a can of Mackeson’s Stout, a Dairylea Triangle and a Ross’s pickled onion in no way constitutes healthy fayre’.

He hears

‘Push up bra’.

Miss Rosey Apple however has none of these problems.

Picture this, it is gale force 10 outside, the rain is lashing her windows and her curtains (one day I will tell to you the story of the 2 inch shrinkage) are closed to the elements. Miss Rosey Apple snuggles on the draylon to watch Jonathon Ross. Mr G. has called her at home just in case she doesn’t already know. Of course she knows fine well, this is a date with DONNY!

She has purchased Ribena and picked all the Blackcurrant jellies out of the Fruit Salad (Donny likes Purple things), the Kir Royale is on ice, her plum skirts are lifted coquettishly just above the ankle in case Ozzer can see her from inside the telly box. Perhaps he will come calling later to whisk her away to Salt Lake City for a love fest with the brothers.

Quel Horror the telly box goes blank, there is nothing, just fuzzy bits with Jimmy peering through the gloom like an audition for Poltergeist with teeth.

THE SATELLITE HAS GONE DOWN!

In a flash she knows what the trouble is. The oak tree in the garden has swayed its 100 year old branches in front of the dish. Quick as a groupie spotting a back stage opportunity at the Flamingo, Las Vegas, she has Mr. RA out to the shed to find a sharp implement. He dutifully ‘George Washingtons’ the tree with bloody great axe whilst the hurricane blows around his head, his frail body pelted with hail, his meagre chemise trailing Bryronesque-like in the howling gale.

Poor bugger.

It is only once the tree has bitten the dust that Miss RA becomes remotely rational. The wind has actually blown the dish off the wall and it is lying in next door’s garden.

He says, ‘I cannot tell a lie little wifey, I hate that Donny and his school boy looks, his cheeky chappy persona, the sweaty picture for May on your Official Donny Calendar 2008.’

She says, ‘Darling you are my hero, my Mr Rochester, come and nestle your damp head to my heaving breast, Donny and I are finished you are the only man for me, let us run away to Charlotte Town and drive for 5 hours before bathing with pelicans!’

He hears,

‘Push up bra’

Now ladies I know I am not alone when I confide in you that I suffer from marital abuse. For years I have slept fitfully, or not at, due to the monstrous proportions of Mr Greenwood’s snoring.

The snoring alone would send the Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer into, ‘A sturdy umbrella will not save you now’ mode. But it is far worse than you might imagine, Mr Greenwood fights demons in his sleep.

Many a night I am sharply awoken by Mr G’s Bill Sykes impersonation,

‘Bulls Eye! Bulls Eye! come ‘ere Bulls Eye!’

Accompanied by a punch to the ribs, a kick up the backside, fisty cuffs with the headboard just above my head and, on really special occasions, a karate chop across the bridge of the nose.

It is therefore with some trepidation that I head to the North Norfolk coast for a romantic weekend for two.

I love Norfolk. Captain Sums is always advocating blue sky thinking and where better to untangle than under biggest and bluest sky around.

Once I have dragged Mr.G into his trousers and away from the evils of back to back Time Team, we venture forth to discover a wealth of interesting creatures.

On Saturday we jump aboard Bean’s Boats at Morston Quay and head out to The Point to see Mr and Mrs Salty Seal and all the baby Seals. These inquisitive little chaps pop up next to the boat, wave their Jeremy Beadle flippers in greeting, and flobble around the dunes waggling their plumptiousness. I am one snorkel short of hoying myself into the water for a bit of a rough and tumble, unusually sanity prevails. (One day I will tell you about Mr Greenwood, the Turtle the size of a dining room table, the Yellow Pipey Fish and the Panic Attack).

On Sunday after a swift half at The Wiverton Bell and a joyous hour investigating St Mary’s Church, we are hanging over the cemetery wall in full sunlight when, damn my eyes, Mr.Barn Owl swoops right past our eyes. I practically squeal with excitement. Off I bustle, Mrs Tiggywinkle like, to the little bridge next to Stonebridge House and, low and behold, there are two pairs of barn owls flying low to the ground investigating the voles and moles and tiny creature folk who are sailing down the river in little steam boats made from sardine tins and upturned oak leaves. It is only the lure of a crab salad that makes me tear myself away from this very rare spectacle.

On Sunday I am delighted to report a close encounter with Master Piglet, all pink and perky stalking a pheasant in a field. I am out of the Morris and skipping up the road waving my brolly at him, possibly in the hope he will be my friend and come home and live in my house. I will buy him a blue satin ribbon to wear and a jaunty yellow jacket with brocade and gold buttons. Despite my Schindleresque passion he is not convinced and I am unable to save his bacon.

Back in our Norfolk love nest Mr Greenwood takes total possession of the 8ft Vi-Spring bed for the third night whilst I crawl away to the hay loft to my child’s 2ft truckle bed with no bed linen save for a plastic mattress protector.

Oh Mr Greenwood, you are as be -whiskered as a seal and as wise as an owl, but do you have to snore like a pig?

I have just returned from a secret meeting with Doreen Gray. Those of you lucky enough to have seen Ursula Andress in ‘She’ will understand the very nature of this immortal woman.

Doreen Gray is a 500 year old sorceress in the body of a buff 21 year old.

She has, without doubt, stepped into the eternal flame and is reborn as possibly one of the most glamorous and youthful ladies I know.

God I hate her.

As you already know I model myself on ‘Woman in a Dressing Gown’. Poor Mr Greenwood is at his whit’s end with my unpalatable offerings of oven chips and Scumerfield beef burgers, the slovenly floor puddles of knickers and gin soaked housecoat and it is a matter of time before he leaves me for a handful or two of barmaid, or similar.

I don’t think I break any confidences when I tell you that Doreen trampolines for a hobby and I will take a bet on the fact that she can do star jumps without leakage of any kind. This woman’s internal lift rockets from the basement to the penthouse 60 times a minute.

Mr Greenwood has already volunteered to travel to her lost city in the mountains.

I really should hate her, her flat stomach and perfect tan, her manicure and her blow died hair and yet, and yet, I find I rather like the tart.

If nothing else I amuse myself by crouching at the meeting table to see if there is any Botox activity under her fringe.

There isn’t.