Tuesday 11 June 2019

The cleaning lady

is coming early today.
Now I need to explain about the cleaning lady. I would not have employed her myself. It would never have occurred to me. This was Middle Cat's doing. 
Middle Cat caught me at the point where I had the 'flu - Influenza A to be precise. The Senior Cat had it too. He was in hospital. It was all I could do to get out of bed - but things had to be done and I had to get out of bed...because Middle Cat was ill too.
Middle Cat has a cleaning lady. She inherited said cleaning lady from her DH's side of the family.
Said cleaning lady is an absolute gem. She is wonderful. She is a keeper. I like her. She does the things I find difficult...like washing the kitchen the floor without slipping over on it and reaching high places. (She is taller than I am. I am a very short cat.)
I still do lots of cleaning but she comes for two hours once a fortnight and, while I still run the mop over the kitchen floor in between, she does the floors thoroughly, she scrubs the bathroom and vacuums the Senior Cat's bedroom. (I love that. I hate the vacuum cleaner.  There is almost no carpet in the house.) She dusts the high places. She has helped me clean out cupboards and more... all in the space of two hours. I don't know how she does it...especially as she is thorough with it.
And she charges very little. I don't think she charges nearly enough but she insists she is happy with that.
So when she phoned yesterday and asked if she could come early so that she could go to do something else important I said, "Of course."
It won't make any difference to us. We get out of her way. This time the Senior Cat will still be having his breakfast but she will start at the other end of the house anyway. Even if it had not been very convenient I would have said nothing.  
I know people who would not have wanted to be flexible about such things. They would have thought, "I am employing...."  I cannot think that way about this particular person. She  has been much too good to us. I have several times had to leave lunch for the Senior Cat to go and do something else on a day when she will be here at her usual time. That extends over lunch time.
    "Off you go. I'll look after him," she tells me. She is the one who sees to it that his lunch is properly heated in the microwave. She washed his plate. He had to go out too one day and she told me,
    "Don't worry. I'll see he's dressed properly." (Later I discovered that not only had she seen to it she had helped him do up his shirt buttons and tuck his shirt in.)
None of those things are what we pay her to do. I feel guilty but relieved when she arrives. It helps. It helps a lot to have her there.
So if she wants to change her time I am more than willing to accommodate her.  
We are so lucky to have her helping us.

1 comment:

jeanfromcornwall said...

She is so much more than a cleaning lady - I suggest the word Treasure might be appropriate. I was lucky to have a somebody near my parents in their final years, who acted in the same way, and became "honorary" family when I was three hundred miles away. People like that are the ones that make this world a better place.