Domestic Delegation

My latest piece of news in a week of monumental developments is this: I have a cleaner!

*Tumbleweed*

Bear with me...

I haven't had a cleaner for 3 years and I have hated every hoover-crumbing-wee-stain-wiping second of those three years but, working part-time, haven't really been able to justify it until now.  Justifying it I absolutely am!  Starting full-time work in June means that I have this dissertation to bang out between now and May.  Employing the cleaner was the first thing I did after popping the champagne on Tuesday evening.

Up until 3 years ago, I always had a cleaner.  Ever since I moved into my flat.  That was pure indulgence and laziness.  Marcela used to clean for Shelley and I and we took great pleasure in throwing dinner parties the night before she came, just so that we didn't have to do the washing up!  Marcela fell out of favour when Stu moved in.  She became the teeniest bit obsessed with me and my arrangements, reading the calendar in the kitchen and then 'coincidentally' turning up at the same gigs as us in London!  Scary.  Bye bye Marcela.

The current cleaner started today and worked like a dog.  I love her.  I am possibly in love with her.  When I was telling Dad yesterday that I had employed a cleaner, his first question was. 'What does she look like?'  I was trying to convince him that I had no interest in her looks, whereas I had a lot of interest in her skills with a feather duster.  My dear Father was trying to infer that a sexy cleaner and a husband that worked at home could be bad combination.  Ahhh - warms your cockles doesn't it?!  Luckily she is no oil painting.

I gave myself a talking to before she arrived this morning about being completely clear about exactly what I wanted from day 1 as bad habits to start with are then quite hard to correct.  That went out of the window when she strode in and started poking about and I realised that she was most definitely wearing the trousers in our relationship.  'Where is the mop?' was one of her first questions.  When I showed her, she continued, 'It's a bad mop.  You need a mop that doesn't spread as much water.'  Oh.  I quite liked my mop.  I was then quaking in my boots when she demanded to see the hoover.  Henry passed the test though with a grunt of approval.  I found my feet again when she told me it was a big house to clean in 4 hours and I told her I managed it quite easily in 3 and a half.  I think I gained a smidgen of respect for this comment and lo and behold she did do an amazing job in her four hours here and I am NEVER looking back again.

I now just need to ensure that my Mondays and Fridays for the next four months are spent on educational discourse and not on sitting in the pub having elongated lunches...