Level 2 Chi Kung.
Katie didn’t want to go to school today, saying that her throat hurt. I made clear that, if she stayed home, she would be left mostly to her own devices as I had stuff to do. My main task was to advertise for a cleaner – our old one, who was fab and had been with us ever since we moved to Blackheath, having returned to Bulgaria to get married and start a family. The children were very fond of Genoveva, who occasionally babysat as well as comingonce a week to clean, and seemed quite alarmed when we told them that she was going back to Bulgaria.
K: [outraged] Bulgaria? She’s going back to BULGARIA?
J: Yes.
Dash: And is Bulgaria a free country now?
J: [vaguely, thinking that they must have covered Eastern European communism at school] Yeah, more or less, for the moment.
Dash: Even the children?
J: [enlightenment dawning slowly] Honey, the country in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang isn’t Bulgaria, it’s Vulgaria – it’s just a made up place, it’s not where Geni comes from.
After some consideration, I decided to use more or less the same ad I used last time I had to advertise (Geni came to us as the friend of a friend of our old nanny). I thought about this quite carefully, as the last time I used the ad, it did generate hate mail, but I also got emails from people saying things like ‘I’m so sorry I’m booked up on Mondays, but I wanted to thank you for the best laugh I’ve had all week’, and, most importantly, it also brought us the best cleaner we have ever had, a young animator doing all kinds of part time jobs to support herself while she got established in her real career. Here’s the ad:
“We are looking for a very special cleaner who:
• Speaks English
• Understands “bone-handled knives and crystal glasses don’t go in the dishwasher”
• Will notice chocolate-y hand prints on the door AND wipe them off
• Will vacuum right into the corners and behind and underneath the furniture, not just the middle of the room
• Won’t put rubbish in the recycling
• Knows how to polish brass
• Understands “Don’t ever touch the computer screens”
• Realises that cleaning the bathroom means actually scrubbing the bath not just spraying it with cleaning fluid and hoping for the best
• Is prepared to do ironing
• Always empties the vacuum cleaner
• Is happy to use a limited range of eco cleaning products.
And most of all, someone who would never in a million years think of wiping out the roasting dish and then smearing the same greasy cloth over every other surface in the house. If this sounds like you, and you are available for four and half hours on a Monday, please email …”
Managed some quiet time with Katie, discussing how she might best deal with X. No real conclusions, but she seems to be feeling better.