Hope and Greenwood

We find our chubby selves, van bound, traffic constipated, up Posh Street, London, after an emergency wedding favour drop of Marry Me Quicks and Love me Tenders into our chums at the posh eau-de-nil store on Piccadilly.

On our right the hallowed frontages of Berry Bros. & Rudd, an off license for la-di-da Gunner Graham types. On the door the chief sniffer lingers ready to ascertain if you smell suitable for entry, probably of mahogany, deer intestines, and the young rump of back stairs valets.

Next door is top notch residence of John Lobb the Bootmaker with a formidable portfolio of celebrities, prime ministers, chanteuse, royalty and Camilla.

From the comfort of his white van, elbow out the window and an eye roving for a nice pair of knockers Mr Grumpy says, ‘If I were rich, I would invest in a made to measure pair of Lobb’s shoes’.

‘Then why don’t you? You are a special case, and in need of made to measure footwear. Like John Mills in Ryan’s Daughter.’

I am bowled over by my own faux generosity and middle aged madness, this is what gin and chocolate for breakfast does to your mind, the skunk of the middle classes.

‘You deserve special shoes,’ I says. ‘If only your mother had loved you, and not made you go Australian Walkabout in the same sandals for 5 years, you would have been spared the inconvenience of curly monkey toes. Toes for swinging through branches in a rain forest, enjoying endless water sports with Johnny Weissmuller’s hairless baboon boy breasts and coveting adolescent fantasies that Jane’s ill fitting leotard might fall asunder to reveal her sweat beaded watering hole. Anyway John Lobb’s shoes last for ever.’

He nods his head ruefully, if his moustache was animated it would do a jolly roll and unroll and a Colgate twinkle would ping from his roaming eye.

 ‘They will out live you, and I will bury you in them’.

‘That is the vilest and most disgusting thing you have ever said to me,’ he spits, ‘you are black of soul, warped of brain and from Sunderland. I don’t know why I married you, you big jugged whore. My darling mother warned me you were shop soiled.’

Perhaps this is not the moment then, to mention my plans for his Ronald Macdonald shroud?

I have woken up with a pain in my side. At my age this spells a Google finger frenzy throwing up spaghetti lady tubes, tropical mites eating their way out, swollen dried fruits of the forest, an elfin creature trapped in my lower bowel or perhaps a once inserted, lost forever surgical probe.

Mr G is putting on his very concerned face; you know the one -puzzled owl eyebrows peering over the top of Nuts magazine.

‘What did you eat last night?’

‘Pork kebab.’

‘There wasn’t much pork in it, it’s not like you had a pork overload,’ he says.

‘No,’ I sigh.

Chance would be a fine thing.

Let me set the scene. It has been a very stressful morning.

We are in transit to The Big Yellow Store with a view to demonstrating our skills as chocolate tasters set against a new Hope and Greenwood Summer backdrop. We will be titillating the taste buds of the nation with some of our wondrously flavoured truffles, Lavender, Geranium, Rose, Violet, Chilli and Lime and Earl Grey Tea.

Half way up Toff’s Lane in my LK Bennett, bosom heaving day dress, our refrigerated van gives up the will to live and we are forced to turn back and swap to another vehicle. We are horribly late.

As we plough through the congested traffic of London’s West End, folk scatter like aphid pole dancers at a toad stag night.

‘Get out of the way you pedestrian piece of garbage, ARE YOU BLIND?!’ shouts Mr G. An old lady, who might be your mother, whacks the windscreen with her white stick.

An hour later I am on the Big Yellow Store shop floor trying to reconcile several parts of a build your own spotty cake stand. I am really late, really stressed and my nose is unforgivably shiny.

‘Good morning.’ He is quiet. Panther like. Still. His voice is as brown as chocolate, as smooth as peach skin.

A dense curtain of fog has fallen. He is standing too close to me, far too close. I can smell the stench of a thousand lost confectionery buyers on his breath. He has come, The Prince of Darkness, The Big Boss, and flanking him skulks his raven-suited entourage.

‘You are late.’

His half lidded, serpent’s eyes engage with mine. I inhale. Icy fingers of fog murderously grip my throat. I know in an instant that he can see the fetid sins of my pathetic, unworthy soul. The shameful seen-better-days granny pants and the really bad one about the night I spent in Pauline’s Fish Box.

‘I-I-I,’ my knees are trembling. There is a slick of cold sweat on my back. I am terrified. ‘My van broke down’.

His face is as dark as graveyard spoils. He says nothing, nothing. He beckons his diabolic servants to step forward. They flip open my cranium with a Brabantia tin opener and He gobs the putrid phlegm of derision onto my recoiled Tik-Tak sized brain.
I may never wear sunglasses again.

He throws back his head and laughs, torrid rivers of evil. Make no mistake; it is He who lurks in the black shadows of your midnight room toying with your destiny.

The dank air is fecund with the weighted odour of Biltong and Square Pies.
He draws his Cloak of Darkness around him.
With one backward glance He is gone.

There is no denying it. He definitely looked at my tits.

From: Miss Hope’s Grandchildren
Sent: 12 April 2009 16:16
To: The Easter Bunny
Subject: Pizza Delivery!

DEAR EASTER BUNNY, I WAS IN THE GARDEN WITH MY NANNY THE OTHER DAY AND WHEN ME AND NANNY WENT ON THE CLIMBING FRAME, AT THE TOP WAS A SQUARE HAM AND PINAPPLE PIZZA AND 2 GREAT BIG GOLD EASTER EGGS.THANK YOU SO MUCH.

CAN YOU TELL ME HOW OLD YOUR BUNNYS ARE PLEASE?

LOVE FROM JANE AND JAMIE
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

PS.IS TWISTED WHISKERS OK AFTER BEING RUN OVER BY THE TRACTOR?

From: The Eater Bunny
Sent: 10 April 2009 11:14
To: Miss Hope’s Grandchildren
Subject: I DON’T LIKE CARROTS!

Dear Jane and Jamie,

Please can you find some pink buns, because I hate carrots (and lettuce, it is rubbish, who eats lettuce?).

I will see if I can pick you a pineapple and ham pizza from my garden, but the rain has damaged all the ham trees and it has gone a bit soggy.

My children are called

Angora-she is very fluffy

Barbie-she is the one with pink scooter

Biscuit-likes custard creams

Bluebell-has a blue hat

Chunder-eats her own poo

Chocolate Chip-eats chocolate chips, and sometimes her own poo

Colin-is really boring

Cupcake-is cute and pretty

Dandelion-Dandy for short-wets the bed

Elvis-is a jive bunny

Fast Freddie-won the Bunny Cross Country run for Goudhurst

Floppy Puff Puff-is the laziest bunny of the lot

Twisted Whiskers-Twister for short –got run over by a tractor

Miss Fluffypaws -is going to be a beauty salon ladybunny

Marshmallow-is squidgy

Master Sparkles-is really clever and does not eat his own poo

And my husband is called Lord Rabbitus Bunnitor Hopitum the Second.

Lots of love

The Easter Bunny
Carrot Cottage
Hoppy lane
Goudhurst

xxxxxxx

From: Miss Hope’s Grandchildren
Sent: 09 April 2009 15:30
To: The Easter Bunny
Subject: WE DONT HAVE PINK ICED BUNS!

Dear  Easter  bunny

I have put a big blue unbrella out side my front door because it has been raining this morning  when you come with eggs please can you put them under the umbrella to keep them dry?

Mummy and Daddy said we don’t have any pink iced  buns, so will a carrot do ?

Please can you tell me what your 16 bunny children are called? and how old are they?

I went to pizza express  for  my friend Joes birthday party and i did not like the pizza there because it had  olives and mushrooms on it ,please could i have a home garden grown ham and pinapple pizza with extra bunny droppings please from your bunny garden?

I know you still  have lots of easter eggs to make and send ,so goodbye for now

love from Jane & Jamie

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

From: The Easter Bunny
Sent: 09 April 2009 10:32
To: Miss Hope’s Grandchildren
Subject: RE: RE: Easter Bunny

Dear Jane and Jamie,

I am having such a busy week, all the girls and boys want chocolate eggs and some of them are quite smelly and never do their homework, especially that bully boy at your school.

I bumped into nanny and granddad at the weekend looking at nice houses, one had a pond which would make an excellent, if muddy, home for two beautiful mermaids and maybe a merboy, providing he does not have a BIG STINKY PLOP in the water like he did at Disneyland Paris!

I promise not to eat your vegetables actually I hate carrots. I have my very own allotment where I grow roast beef, pepperoni pizza and jumbo fish fingers and sometimes pick magic eggs from the chocolate trees. I’ll let you in on a secret. Queeny, the marmalade cat from next door, has to jump around in the branches to shake the chocolate eggs from the tree and we stand beneath and catch them in our aprons. (Did I tell you I have 16 children? So many cottontails to keep clean.)

I’m going to hop off now, we still have to make 12,967,465,092,875,642,000, 007,868,7582 Easter eggs before Sunday!

Be good, I’ll at your house on Sunday morning. Please make sure you leave out some lemonade and pink iced buns on Saturday night as these are my favourites.

Your fluffy tailed friend,

The Easter Bunny
Carrot Cottage
Hoppy lane
Goudhurst

Illustration from The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward, illustrated by Marjorie Flack

From: Miss Hope’s Grandchildren
Sent: 07 April 2009 19:01
To: The Easter Bunny
Subject: RE; Easter Bunny

Dear Easter bunny

Thank you for your email . I don’t need anything because i have so many toys.
But i would like my nanny and grandad (the ones who have the sweet shops!) if they could have a house near ares and they  could  have a  swimming pool and me & my nanny  can play mermaids.
I’m clad you like my slide tunnels and next  time  you come you can  play on them if you like but no bunny droppings as jamie will thing they are choclate chips.

Love from

Jane and jamie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

P.S. don’t eat are vegetables because my mum will be cross !!!!!!!!!

Illustration from The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward, illustrated by Marjorie Flack

From: The Easter Bunny
Sent: 03 April 2009 09:39
To: Miss Hope’s Grandchildren
Subject: Easter Bunny

Dear Jane and Jamie,

I was hopping around in the field outside your house admiring your new slide tunnels and wondering what you would like for Easter. I know Daddy likes orange chocolate buttons, the Naughty Pixie told me. 

The very same Naughty Pixie whispered in my ear that you and Jamie hate chocolate! He is such a fibber, you never know if he is telling the truth or not.

So is it true that when you eat chocolate a big spotty rash appears on your bottom and even your princess knickers don’t help to hide it? Your ears wiggle about like socks on a washing line and then you sneeze 100 times and then fall over?

If this is true I must not send you chocolate, it would be too awful. Perhaps you would like an old hankie full of green bogies or some yellow pants instead?

I have no idea what to give you for Easter, can you give me any clues?

Fluffy love,

The Easter Bunny,

PS Stop getting prickles in your fingers or your arm will drop off.

The Easter Bunny
Carrot Cottage
Hoppy lane
Goudhurst

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward, illustrated by Marjorie Flack

Lucky me, I am summoned by Sonya from the BBC to give an interview; she asks would I care to take tea with her at the Ritz where she can plunder my sweet knowledge and I can steal the silverware. Well why not, how lovely, how deeply posh, times are tough and I’m partial to an egg mayonnaise and cress bridge roll.

I arrive nicely on time, for a change. I have made an effort and am wearing a black 1950’s frock which, I realise too late, is extremely tight and revealing. My ample orbs are in danger of slipping their moorings and winning the Trans Green Park, Hot Air Balloon Race.

Perhaps a subtle linen napkin, or two, may suffice to veil the opulent shame of my Jayne Mansfields?

Oh bugger it, I stick out my attributes and sally forth, head held high, regardless. Several road mender types fall down manholes, a women’s library of lesbians loosen their dungarees, a small dog dances on its hind legs, route masters screech to a halt and a foreigner covers her child’s eyes with her Fendi python tote.

Sonya arrives. She is smart casualle in her 7 For All Mankind jeans, Diane Von Furstenberg coat and on trend metallic heels. She sweeps her eyes over my curvaceous outfit in one disparaging wave of horror.

‘You will never get into the Ritz dressed like that,’ she winces, ‘you look like a bloody prostitute!’

We are off to a grand start then.

Reluctantly Sonya steers me through the impressive portico of the hotel, across the marble foyer towards the reception desk. The stern receptionist folds his gloved and gold buttoned arms securely across his chest and rocks slightly on his heels. He tuts, quite loudly as it happens.

‘I’m sorry madam, you can’t come in.’ he says bluntly.

Sonya swivels her eyes at me and arches her eyebrows of mortification, she is well angry. She does that head bendy, screw thing and throws me the stare of a virgin at a Bacchanalian love in.

‘I’m sorry, Madam’, says the receptionist, as he leans over his counter and peers at her legs, ‘the Ritz has a ‘no jeans’ policy’.