AKA Gary Hun
Do your worst Nigel. This gang are Brexitproof!
We’re on our way to my Hungarian citizenship ceremony and I’m terrified that I’m going to mess the whole thing up at the final hurdle.
Wait.
What?
Oh yes. I haven’t mentioned that have I? A few months back I applied to be a Hungarian citizen, but I’ve been keeping it on the low-down incase the wheels came off at the last minute.
My initial application was back in October. It was an unseasonably hot day and I was wearing shorts and flip flops as a squat middle-aged Hungarian lady sat opposite me, a seemingly randomised stream of consonants pouring out of her mouth in my direction. The idea was that I had to prove that I could understand and speak a basic level of Hungarian. I didn’t have the foggiest idea what she was babbling on about. My sweat glands were beginning to get excited.
“Uh.” I’d awkwardly replied.
She’d turned to Zsuzsa, who was sitting next to me as she needed to sign some docs and apparently said, in Hungarian, “He doesn’t speak Hungarian does he?”.
THE CHEEK OF IT!
Zsuzsa apparently replied that I did, but that I was a bit nervous.
The woman then turned back to me and vomited out another stream of randomised letters. This particular retch of projectile Hungarian was apparently her asking me if I was okay to have my finger prints taken.
“Igen (yes).” I’d gambled.
The woman scoffed, clearly seeing through my guess disguise. I was drowning in a goulash of consonants.
The next half an hour was horrific, but miraculously I scraped through by the skin of my teeth. My one regret, on leaving the interview, was that I’d declined the opportunity to take a different name for my Hungarian identity.
“I could have officially been known as Attila the Hutchins!” I’d said to Zsuzsa remorsefully as we drove away. “Or Gary Hun!” I’d added.
Anyway, back to today and us on our way to my ceremony.
“You’re so lucky.” says Zsuzsa breaking the nervous silence in the car.
“How so?” I ask.
“You could easily be in quarantine in Italy right now!”
I was supposed to be snowboarding in Northern Italy last week until various factors transpired to thwart my pisting plans.
“Ah, yes. Super lucky.” I reply, whilst secretly longing for two weeks quarantined in Italy with an abundance of Italian food, red wine and endless, uninterrupted, child-free sleep.
We drive on in reflective silence, before Zsuzsa once more breaks my zen.
“I just don’t understand it!” she exclaims. “Toilet paper! Why toilet paper!? Coronavirus doesn’t make you shit more does it?”
“I don’t think so.” I respond with a shrug. “Maybe someone heard someone say that people were panic buying toilet roll and so now people are panic buying toilet roll because they think everyone else is going to panic buy it all?”
Zsuzsa thinks about this for a moment.
“You know what? That’s brilliant.” she eventually says. “Brilliant! I bet Andrex or someone was behind all this. Genius! You know what you should do?”
“What?”
“Create a similar rumour about your book. Tell people that it’s running low due to panic buying. Make people panic buy The Budanest!”
“An excellent emergency option if they run out of toilet roll as well.”
“Exactly!”
“Do you think we should panic buy some oat milk?” I ask, suddenly concerned about the oaty milkiness of my morning coffees.
“Maybe.” replies Zsuzsa. “And quinoa. Let’s panic buy quinoa.”
“And avocados.” I add.
“And lets not forget Prosecco! We definitely need to panic buy more Prosecco! What if it runs out? Can you imagine?”
I daren’t even think about it.
We arrive at the place where my ceremony is going to take place, I take a deep breath, get out of the car and we make our way towards the building. Lola is holding my hand and waddling alongside me like a pet chimpanzee. Just like her big sister Mila, she has started walking properly on her first birthday.
Wait.
What?
Welcome to The One Club Lolo.
Oh yes! Lola’s one! She’s now a walking, talking human, if you count grunting “PEPPA” or “ANYA!”, or “DADDY!” or “TEJCSI” (Hungarian for milk) as talking. Okay, so her conversational skills are only as developed as say, a Geordie, but it’s a start.
Anyway, to cut a long story short as I need to get back to my Prosecco before it gets flat, I got through my ceremony, clumsily stumbling through the national anthem and falling through the oath.
And now I’m Hungarian! How weird does that sound! I’m Hungarian! Or to be a bit more precise, a Brexitproof Hungarian Brit with a one year old baby girl and a months supply of oat milk in his kitchen cupboards.
Köszönöm szépen!