Saturday November 27th 2010 – Crumpets! Meet The Parents.

It seemed a bit of a dodgy old day out there for you, Dear Tree. For us, however, in the ever approaching festive warmth, it was all remarkably lovely.

Hoobiz, The Little Perfect One and I had afternoon tea with my parents. Tea, (coffee for Hoobiz), consisted of: crumpets, cheeses, tomatoes, smoked salmon, ham, olives and some implausibly scrummy little pastry swirls. This was then followed by florentines, shortbread, lemon drizzle cake, chocolate ginger, nuts, grapes and an enormous gin and tonic. Well, a G&T for me and some fruit concoction for Hoobiz.

I’m not usually all about the food, but after a few weeks of trying to be good, there is nothing better than issuing yourself with a valid Bad Day Pass. I don’t usually subscribe to all this naughty and nice nonsense either, but let’s just say I got properly stuck in and loved every minute of it!

I would say that my parent’s house is a sort of hive of happy chaos. It’s a beautiful, comfortable place, filled with animals, laughter, warmth and magic. Still, it would stop dead the cool beat of any minimalist’s heart! Just the clocks (and there are so many clocks), have been known to offend the flimsy-eared. Yet, almost without exception, it’s a place people just love to visit and visit they do. Lewis Carol must have managed to sip many a cup of tea with my folks. It’s the only explanation for a whole lot of things.

Don’t get me wrong, Simona and Bat are truly two of the finest people you could ever encounter. As parents, they may have equals, but I don’t believe a better pair has ever walked on this spinning marble of ours. As Hoobiz would say, ‘they are not perfect, but they are pretty damn close.’

My father, Alexander is a genuine Jamaican gentleman. He would honestly describe himself as, ‘a very ordinary man’, but there, for once, he is wrong. Bat, as he is known to me, is quite the rarest of beings. Bat, short for ‘Rat-Bat hav tek me hat’, is a full blown eccentric magician. When I say magician, I don’t mean the card-carrying, rabbit in a hat kind, I just mean he’s magic. Bat is indeed quiet and unassuming, but he is also broadminded, enthusiastic and monumentally kind.

When the lottery was first introduced, we had hours of fun discussing how we would spend the jackpot. Like millions of families, I suspect, my brothers and I imagined increasingly elaborate mansions with cinemas, swimming pools, ponies, Ferraris and an army of genie-butlers ready to grant our every wish. It was only when we had thrashed out the final details of our jewel-encrusted jet packs that Bat would be drawn in.

 ‘I should like to have handmade shoes,’ he said. We all shrieked with laughter and teased Bat in turn for, well, basically for being... Bat. Who could possible crave custom cobbling over Dynasty decor? No one was saying that he couldn’t have made-to-measure Brogues for every day of the week, month, or even year if he chose, but surely he must want more?

Somehow it seems a lot less ridiculous now. As Bat said, ‘Just imagine, comfort in your very own shoes. The perfect fit would make you feel able to keep going just that little bit longer every day.’ That’s it really. I mean Bat likes nice things and he loves holidays, but Bat is happiest when he’s busy.

For about 2 weeks in 1985 I wished I had one of those loud, brash dads who swung you upside down until you cried and told ‘pull my finger’ type jokes to anyone who would listen. Perhaps it was less than 2 weeks. I can’t believe that ‘Brash Dad’s’ repertoire would have lasted the full 14 days. Anyway, it didn’t take much for me to figure out that I had something very much better. Yes, I had a Bat.

Bat has lived in the UK for over 40 years. Most people still seem to hear an accent, but I can only recognise it very slightly on two words: ‘Ree-a-lies’ and ‘In-tresting’. That is unless he is drinking rum with an old friend or telling a story about an old man of Trelawney called ‘work me death’, or some other lively name. For me, that’s what is more Jamaican than anything about Bat; a passion for nicknames.

The nickname thing has certainly been passed down to my brothers and I. Mine are less descriptive than Bat’s, but it was me who gave my Mother, Ingrid, the name of Simona. Most people do now, in fact, call her Simona, but I’m pretty sure the majority of them don’t know why. I think people just assume that it’s her name.

It’s not a name that I thought of, exactly, as it all started with a wrong number. Over 20 years ago a croaky, perhaps whisky- coloured voice had left an epic message on the answer-phone. It went something like this:

 ‘Simona? Hello! Hello! Simona... are you there? Oh Simona, my Duchess, where are you? Where are you, my Princess Simona? Dear Simona, are you baking? Your buns are still the finest in the county, my love. It’s your cool hands, my dear Simona. My sweet Simona with her dainty crimping fingers! Gentle Simona with her perfect lemon...’

I would continue, but over the years the content of this poor chap’s ode to Simona and her confectionaries has grown ever more outrageous.

My Simona has a deliciously wicked sense of humour, but she is also deeply compassionate. The first message did bring her to tears of laughter, but she also wanted to return the call and explain that his Simona didn’t flap her jacks at this number. The problem was, that back then, we could only retrieve the number of the last caller and the last caller was Bat. My brothers and I thought it was hilarious and were delighted when a second and then third message was left by our very own Mr Kippling.

By the fourth message, the man we now knew as Felix had described in detail the intricate piping on Simona’s vanilla slice and compared it’s perfect symmetry to her flaxen curls. These curls, he said, were ‘as light as a cream horn’ on the day he first saw her. This time he had been the last caller and our Simona called back. She discovered that this was the number of a nursing home somewhere in rural Lancashire. Quite who Felix was, or if there was a Simona, we’ll never know, but the calls stopped.

It’s quite sad if you think about it, but at the time I just thought that it was a great game. It’s also how Simona became Simona.

Simona is the brightest person I have ever met. She’s bright in every sense of the word. She‘s quick and brilliant. She’s warm and dazzling. She’s beautiful and sparkly. Simona’s very presence is magnetic and it’s impossible not to feel a bit better by just being around her.  If she is incapable of anything, it’s being dull. Even watching paint dry would be fun with Simona.

Yes, I can be selfish, ungrateful and despondent all in the space of 5 minutes sometimes, but deep down I do know that I have more reasons to be grateful than most. I don’t mean that in a negative way, it’s not a competition after all. I just mean that when it comes to parents, my brothers and I all agree that we really lucked out.

Of course, The Little Perfect One is only just discovering delights of having a Grandmona and Grandbat in his world, but it’s amazing to watch it unfold.