Hope and Greenwood

My husband has entertained many hobbies. Once is was owls, then vegetables, then wives. You name it he’s killed it. Now dear chum it is boats. He doesn’t own a boat but he does have the hat - the other night he asked me to call him Captain Greenwood in the sack, no word of a lie.

Near collapse with sea themed TV programmes I text our son, Casper, who is on his own journey somewhere in deepest Vietnam.

‘DEAREST CASPER – SOS – STOP – Shipwrecks of Gallipoli – STOP – Timothy Spall and his miserable life pottering around the British coast line – STOP – The Antiques Road Show from the Maritime Museum – STOP – The Box that Changed Britain – a history of the sea container – STOP – Shanties and Sea Songs – STOP – The Onedin Line – STOP – Triangle – STOP – Jaws  – STOP –  STOP –  STOP.  SEND HELP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE  – STOP!

Casper replies tartly,

‘DEAR MUMMA – STOP – REGRET TO INFORM YOU – STOP – Dad planning FREE WILLY – STOP.

I recently took a trip, not the ta ta see ya laters kind of trip, but the nose dive variety down the stairs in the style of Laura Ashley.

I am carrying the laundry, of the boy variety, and, as I spiral downward a maelstrom of jocks and socks swirl above my head. Everything is in slow motion, smash go the ribs, whack goes the swede, thwack go the elbows.

I am doing a Princess Diana cry-for-help pose at the bottom of my stairs, legs up the stairs, torso in the hall, and I am braying loudly - a birthing, prehistoric noise which sounds like sex with a Hoover. Think wounded bison in a watering hole stalked by a leopard for three days and David Attenborough chatting glibly about its impending dismemberment.

I can vaguely see Mr Soprano Greenwood in the kitchen as he reluctantly puts down his pizza breakfast and saunters towards me, doing that peek a boo thing with his dressing gown . It takes but a nano second for him to realise I am in big trouble and he needs to make some tough decisions - fast.

I smell his primal fear, I see his wide eyed confusion, I register his appalling dilemma.

‘If I call an ambulance,’ he is thinking, ‘what am I going to do for clean pants?’

It has been a year of personal change.

As the Boots ad’ says, ‘Just change one thing,’ and so, over the last year, I have concentrated on changing one thing at a time. Never moving onto the next stage until the previous mountain is conquered. Call it a mid life crisis if you will, dear chum.

1. I am no longer a boom-baba lard arse.
2. I have given up my beloved Mother’s Ruin. Completely.
3. I have used the exercise bike for more than a coat stand.
4. I have thrown away all clothes with an Empire line - designed to conceal my pork pie fetish.

The most recent stage includes changing my red hair to blond for which my chum Jo Malone has recommended celebrity hairdresser to the stars, Mathew. In order to visit Mathew you have several options, sell a kidney, kill your mother, own a well appointed bungalow in Glocca Morra.

After a 5 hour foil marathon with Jane and her magnificent faux breasts (‘Can I? I can? Well thank you, the pleasure was entirely mine’.) I emerge…um…a bit…ginger.

Later at home, I am toying with an Ocean Pie.

‘Do you think Mr G,’ I say, peering at my tango hair in the back of a spoon, ‘that it is a bit . . .ginger? I look like a cheap, brassy tart.’

‘Quick!’ says his lordship, ‘get upstairs.’

Well here we go again, another Valentine’s Day littered with the rain washed, gutter clogging confetti of disappointment.

What might Mr G buy me this year? If I have been really good he might just pop out and purchase something thoughtful and special, like a box set of The Sopranos, a deep fat fryer, or, if really lucky, a life sized cut out of Rachel Weisz and some Nutella.

‘I would ideally benefit from a Jo Malone, Red Roses, candle’, I say, sweeping his toe nail clippings from the living room floor, ‘whilst slightly costly it will keep me out of your face for a while’, I say, blotting the damp patch in the en suite, ‘leave you in peace to explore the paint balling feature on Big Naturals.’

‘I was thinking about making you breakfast in bed,’ he muses.

How exciting! Champagne, French toast, cherry jam…..

‘Sausage’ he says, ‘followed by porridge.’

I like Valentine’s Day.

After a corset busting Christmas and the lull that is January, when all good folk are OD-ing on Muller Light, Valentine’s peeps her curls coquettishly around the corner of Love Walk. She flashes her can-can petticoats revealing the thrill of pink net beneath, blows giggling kisses in your face, floating around in a joyous cloud of candy floss.

I am squeezed into the very narrow window at our North Cross Road shop installing our Love Letter window display. My ample derrière is pressed up against the window like an over filled panini in a Breville.

An emergency call has been placed to Rosemary Conley and she is standing on the pavement with a hastily rigged Karaoke system, ‘Buy more Ryvita, Lard Arse,’ she sings to the tune of Demis Roussos’s, Kaftans, Forever and Ever, ‘Eat Cottage Cheese, Wide Load.’

Mr G pulls up outside, too late, obviously, to be of any use to man or beast.

‘Kitten,’ he says, ‘Let’s run away to a remote house in the country where, with the light on and the curtains open, you can practise your Isadora Duncan moves stark bollock naked, high kicking to your heart’s content. It will be so isolated that no one will be able to see you, not even Pervy Derek from next door.’

‘But Pervy Derek,’ I purr, ‘is such a good tipper and I am saving up for lipo.’

It is time for bed in the Greenwood home, I am wearing my new PJs, they are warm and comforting, my hot water bottle is filled, steaming water bubbling over its neck with excitement.  It smells like my childhood.

‘Look,’ Mr G,’ I swoon, pulling back the curtains, ‘it is snowing.
Winter has reached the ice edged, fish freezing pond, the headlong moon beams over the patchwork garden, white as snow, feather white, Daz white. Tomorrow the children will plunge their mittens into the sticky backed snow, laughing in the crisp, bell-pealing air of carol singing, small cats will walk the back garden fjord, print making with their velvet feet. And look there is Mrs Prothero cuckooing towards her ice stiff, cold snapped, frozen Findus Pancake washing, wreaths of breath mist around her curlers, calling for her cats.’

Mr G rattles his Bravissimo catalogue, ‘I hate snow,’ he says.

His majesty Mr. Grumpy show-me-yer-tits Greenwood is on jury service, in December I ask you, for at least 4 weeks, I ask you.

Miss Rosey Apple and I are running the business like a pair of lesbians, no box is unliftable, no pallet truck unpushable and no courier unpunchable.

We are doing pretty well too.

Mr. Greenwood has conveniently forgotten the stresses of Christmas retail. Selfridges last minute plea for help, Fortnum’s errant hamper orders, the packing team pandemic of Tuckyitus (an odious virus caused by packing too many Tuck Shop Jars).

He sallies forth like Reginald Perrin every morning with a copy of The Metro, a tuna baguette and the gait of a man with no commitments, except perhaps the hanging of criminals.

Resentful, me? Never.

Last night he was full of nervous excitement. His fellow jurors (read ‘new best friends’) have decided to bring in Christmas lunch.

Margery from Surrey is bringing a cheese and pineapple hedgehog, Joyce from Hounslow is offering a Tupperware Heat ‘n’ Serve dish of Ye Olde Oak Hot Dogs and John is volunteering an Iceland King Prawn Ring.

I am just hanging his Primark pants on the radiator, cooking his tea and planning a night of passionate rumpy pumpy (he is going out) when he pipes up,

‘Can you pick me up some chocolate from HQ for the jurors Christmas party, princess?’

‘Sure,’ I say sarcastically, giving his crème brulée the once over with my Jamie Oliver blow torch and arranging his string beans into parallel lines, ‘I could pop to Sainsbury’s and pick up some party hats and a few tooters if you like?’

‘That would be smashing, angel face’, he says, ‘and some of those sour cream and chive Pringles would be nice too’.

Yesterday I saw Nigella and Charles in Selfridges.

‘I just want to go shopping Charles,’ she snapped.

‘But I want to go home, put the telly on, and snuggle you.’ says he.
Nigella’s voluptuous arse presses on towards Lola’s cupcakes, swinging majestically.

True, all true.

The sweet spotters amongst you will find your favourite chubby confectioner on The One Show on Friday October 9th waxing lyrical to Jay Rayner about E numbers.

Just to get the record straight E stands for European. E numbering is an international numbers system. If there is an E then this has been passed as entirely safe by the European Union. Yes I know it’s all a bit serious and has nothing to do with shoes, knickers or other flotsam.

At H & G we are on the look out for clever people who make sweets without E numbers, because this makes you and your children happy. So you will find our Sugar Mice are made with natural beetroot (E163), our Bobbing Apples and Rosey Apples are chlorophyll (E142) our Smarties from spirulina, a lake algae, our Humbugs are caramel (E150) our Bull’s Eyes are natural carbon black (E153) and our Bonfire Toffee has nothing in it at all but sugar, glucose syrup, treacle, salt and pixie magic (ELF).

By the end of the year Swizzles Matlow who make lots of your favourite nostalgic sweets, such as Love Hearts, Refreshers, Swizzler Lollies, Drumsticks and Parma Violets will all be free from E numbers too.

So you see we do try very hard, we haven’t got it all right yet but we are on the way.

So, if want to hear me say all of that to Jay Rayner, while you are eating an Ocean Pie, just pop the telly on. The bit where I tongue a pink mouse, stand on a suitcase a la dominatrix, force feed Mr.Rayner blue Smarties, and marvel at his carved, penis-in-the-post anecdote will probably be cut out and revived for the Christmas Blunders Compilation.

He tasted of beasts, pork chops and a good Burgundy, and I demand seconds.

Currently Miss Cherry Lips (the foxy red head who looks after our website fulfilment) is using part of her precious lunch hour to teach me Tai Chi.

This week I have rolled some small balls, rolled some large balls, ‘walked the panda’, ‘photocopied a brochure’, and have now graduated to ‘repulse monkey’ a complicated Strictly Come Dancing manoeuvre requiring an extra portion of Kung Po Prawns, Chinese chips, a 2 litre bottle of knock off pop and the alacrity of Topsy Mitchell the Human Pipe Cleaner.

Last night, in the confectioners’ boudoir the following rapport ensues.

‘Husband of my dreams, would you care for a demonstration of my new Tai Chi skills?’ I offer gaily, keenly relinquishing my cocoa.

‘If I must,’ mumbles Mr Grumpy-eye-bags over the top of his Big Naturals Annual.
.
‘Ta-da!’ I trumpet, jumping on the bed, poised, pink knickers and marshmallows akimbo, ‘let me perform for you, at no extra cost, for one night only, before your own eyes. . . my sensational ‘repulse monkey’! ’

‘Is that anything like ‘reverse cowboy?’ says Mr G, hopefully.