Hope and Greenwood

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.