Thing is, everything was going absolutely fine this time last year. I felt like I was connecting with my follower on real-world issues. But it all changed one day in summer when Hubby, my friend Justin and I went to the Lambeth Country Show.
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| Look, he definitely said change at Stockwell |
It’s a country show, but on a patch of grass in Brixton. Sounds dreamy, right? Well it was, until…
“I’ve got you a job” said Hubby.
Justin and I were lying on the grass under the shade of a big tree, drinking beer out of plastic cups. We were getting down with the good, wholesome, country folk of Brixton. I squinted and looked up at Hubs.
“What was that?” I said.
“A job. You know, a new direction.”
“I’m very focused on the blog at the moment. My follower needs me. I’m working on a very interesting entry about the non-standard nature of snap-on hose fittings.”
“What are all these empty plastic cups, Dave?”
I looked at Justin. “Well, we were interested in the novelty vegetable collection. In particular, the resemblance that augmented sweet potato bore to Margaret Beckett. It was uncanny. I loved the way they’d done her teeth and the hair. But then we … then Justin and I happened upon the beer tent.”
“So I see” said Hubby. “You know, the idea of coming to the Country Show is to get involved in the local community, not just to get pissed.”
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| I really felt like the pop-up stall for local favourite "Wok This Way" nailed it. |
“Hubs, it’s a local micro-brewery. We’re supporting the local economy. The man who sold us these pints of lager for seven quid each lives in VNEB borders and everything. Honestly, it’s true – you can ask him.”
“It was a woman” said Justin.
“Well, there you go” I said. “That’s nice for her. And for him, or her or whatever she’s dating. Or if she’s single, all those lucky people that are still in with a chance.”
“Well” said Hubby. “You start this new thing on Thursday. Don’t worry, you’re working from home. Now, I’m just off to do a conference call, the reception’s a bit dodgy here.”
I watched Hubby walk away and looked at Justin who still had two thirsty eyes.
“Did you hear that, Justin?” I said. “A new direction? The cheek of it.”
“The free-range, slow-cooked pig’s cheek of it.”
“This is your fault, Justin.”
“Really? Why? I don’t recall forcing this baker’s dozen of refreshing pale ales upon you.”
“Yeah but you exploit my weakness. You know what you’re doing. You’ve done it before, countless times. There’s a clear pattern. All those times at the Vauxhall Tavern and up West. You’re a monster.”
Justin drained his plastic cup. “Another Whitstable Bay?”
“Yeah, rude not to.”
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| Winners of the "Hanging Basket-Case Relationship" Award |
My new employer was in the business of distributing vegetables and was immediately all over me like purple on beetroot. They were the vegetable-distributing version of PPI. Calling me up and asking me questions and this and that and quite a lot besides.
Looking at their website, I decided it was not dissimilar to the bank I used to work at. They had products, in this case vegetables, probably rotten. They packaged them up (a bit like Collateralised Debt Obligations) and then sold them on to unsuspecting people.
“I hope it’s not like that time I had to sell those zero-rated Greek convertible bonds” I said to Hubby, handing him a cheese straw. “I’ve still got the scars to show for it. I’m telling you. They stick to the book like trampled manure to tarmac. Not even Sandra on the PIIGS desk could get rid of them. And she could sell anything after a night out with the brokers, if you know what I mean. I mean she’d have to y’know do the y’know … to get rid of the really toxic stuff.”
“I’m surprised you even remember that long ago.”
“Don’t be like that, Hubs” I said. “Look, Geordie Shore’s on. Come on Giggy, it’s your favourite. Do a hup-hup and get on the sofa.”
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At about noon the next day, a van drove up outside the house with “Riverdance Farms” or something written on it. I was going to go out and introduce myself to my new boss but one of the houses on "Homes Under the Hammer" was an absolute shitbox and I was waiting for the swoosh that made it all magnolia. It was going to be an amazing before and after in Doncaster.
I crept outside. I was worried I might get caught again by Janet from number twenty. She would want to talk endlessly about the wailing cats and what we were going to do about them. I kept low. There was a box down by the basement window.
“Stay back, Giggy” I said as I jabbed at it like a bomb disposal expert. Giggy was whining. He doesn’t like change.
The note inside the box said “Dear Mr Vanderpump, Welcome to Riverdance Farms. We will be back in a week to collect your empty box.”
I looked at the contents. We’ll be back in a week? I looked at Giggy whose head was tilted to one side. We were both confused. It seemed like quite a tall order considering Hubby and I only ate tiny, miniature vegetables that were vacuum-packed in rows and air-lifted through Dubai.
But a job’s a job. I immediately got to work, emptying the contents of the box onto the kitchen table along with a load of old soil. I separated the vegetables into two categories. There was the “things I know what it is” pile and then there was the “things I don’t know what it is” pile. I looked at Giggy and he agreed. There were a lot in the “things I don’t know what it is” pile.
I called Justin. “Seeing as you got me into this mess, can you help me out?”
“Well” he said. “I have some student papers to read.”
I heard a door close.
Justin has a pretend job at a university but really he works for MI5, even though he denies it. His cover job is UCLA in North London and I always go along with it brilliantly.
“Oh yeah, those student papers. Yeah, students. Papers” I said.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Not yet.”
Justin went to a school where he was allowed to address the teachers by their first name and classes were optional, depending on whether he felt like going. Often he didn’t, allowing him plenty of time to drink cider at the local bus stop. Despite this, he knows a thing or two about veg.
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| A typical day at Justin's school |
At my school in Scotland, addressing teachers by their first name and not turning up to class would have been absolutely fine, assuming you didn’t mind being caned until you were sick.
I sent the pictures of the vegetables over to MI5 and waited for the Justin-oracle to start responding.
“Oh it’s a blah-blah-blah” said Justin. “Just steam it for twenty minutes or you can fry it in butter. They eat them in blah-blah-blah a lot. They’re very blah-blah-blah.”
“Oh” I said.
And it went on.
“Oh those” said Justin. “They’re like small peppers. Spanish people eat them with cold beers on the streets in Spain. Poble-sec, Gracia. Places like that. Some cracked salt on them. They’re delicious.”
“Oh” I said.
And it went on. A bit like the conference calls I used to be on. “I’m working” I said to Giggy. “I’m back at work.”
It took the power of Microsoft Project to make sure everything would be consumed within the one week deadline that I’d been given. Like the deals I’d worked on at the bank, there was a lot of it to shift and it was mainly European crap that no-one understood or wanted. I would sell it to Hubby in disguise.
The implementation plan looked like this:
Thursday – Broccoli bake with courgette batons and a baba ganoush dip
Friday – Butternut squash three-ways – en croute, a la mode and fritters in a basket
Saturday – Generic green soup with a whole baked swede with sprouts in its hair
Sunday – Pasta-free vegetable lasagne “mille feuille”
Monday – Aubergine “tarte tatin” on a bed of pan fried kale a la mer en face de la patisserie
Tuesday – Rocket and tomato reduction with a courgette coulis, ou est la gare madame
Wednesday – Free-style vegetable jerky jambalaya “Lambeth Country Show” style, served in a steel band
I paced around the kitchen, wondering if Riverdance Farms were really the company for me. I mean, it was like Canary Wharf in terms of the amount of work. But I wasn’t sure about the prestige. “There’s gonna be some all-nighters, Gigs. I hope you’ll be there for me.” Giggy looked at me, hoping that meat was not entirely off the menu.
The next few months were a bit of a blur if I’m honest. What I do remember is that I was pushed to breaking point. Even my afternoon martini had a courgette on the side. No sooner had I finished cooking up the last load of fennel, broccoli and something soup and there he was again in that fucking bastard van. I blended, grated, mashed, baked, boiled and chopped until I was ashen and wordless. The doctor prescribed Diazepam in the twenty milligram.
“When’s all this going to end?” I said to the guy as he got down from his dreaded vegetable horror truck.
“Summer veg coming back soon” he said.
“Summer veg? Again?”
It was then that I realised that this job involved no annual leave and I collapsed under the weight of a box of bouncy spring greens. I’ve been signed off work since. For those of you still in the employ of Riverdance, I take off my carrot top hat off to you all.
As for us, we’re a meat only household now. It’s like a branch of St. John in Smithfields. And Giggy’s thrilled because squirrel’s firmly back on the menu.
DVP
