Somewhere Safe

I have an irrational fear. I am afraid that if I leave valuables in the house unattended they will disappear. I don’t mean things like the TV or my staggering costume jewellery collection but things like my laptop, my emergency cash or my passport.

This means that I hide everything that I consider valuable whenever I leave the house, and it drives my husband crazy. He is fed up of me forgetting where my most recent ‘somewhere safe’ is and turning our house upside down to find my cheque book, my online banking log-in or the keys to the garage.

Even growing up, when I didn’t have anything of any real worth to worry about, I had a lock box disguised as a book in which I kept my secrets. When my National Insurance card arrived in the post I immediately hid in at the back of my underwear drawer. I’ll never forget the horror both for me and my younger brother when I needed the number one day while at university and I had to call him to ask him to retrieve it for me.

My favourite quick-fix hiding place is under the mattress. If I’m temporarily using a smaller purse or bag then my large purse or anything from my bag which is in need of protection must be stashed somewhere for their own good. Under the mattress is always my emergency option.  I’ve learnt to use just a corner of it, though, after coming home to a grumpy husband one morning after he had spent a princess and the pea-esque night tossing and turning on a lumpy mattress.

Of course, anyone knows that under the mattress is the first place a burglar will look so I am normally a bit more creative. I am a master of disguise, hiding my laptop behind cushions and cash under paperwork. It’s always a pleasure to find a stray £10 note whilst filing my bills.

Holidays are always a nightmare. Two weeks ago, before going home for Christmas, I thought long and hard about to take with me and what to leave and hide. Having concealed my valuable pieces of jewellery and updated my husband as to the latest location of our emergency cash I just had one thing left to hide.  My purse.

I had decided to only take my driver’s licence and my credit card with me which meant I would be leaving behind my vulnerable debit card, joint account card, some cash, receipts for presents and my Boots card. They deserved the very best hiding place. I remember having a flash of inspiration. I remember reaching to the very back of somewhere to hide the purse. But now I am back I cannot for the life of me remember where this ‘somewhere safe’ is.

I have looked everywhere. I have scoured the backs of cupboards and wardrobes. I have stood on chairs and flashed a torch into corners. I have been home for four days now with no joy. I have a grand total of £3.47 with which to buy things for dinner. It’s a good thing the freezer is so well stocked (yes, I’ve checked in the freezer). If I don’t find it by tomorrow I’m going to have to ‘fess up and tell my husband and ask him to join the hunt, and for some spending money. I know what he’ll ask ‘Where do you remember putting it?’ We both know what the answer will be.

Of course it will turn up. Probably while I’m looking for something else. Something else which will have also been lost ‘somewhere safe’.

Those who can, teach.

Woah! Where did the past FIVE months go?!?

I can tell you where, I’ve been *drum roll* … working! Yep, that’s right. This here housewife has been getting up and going out to earn a living (well, pin money really, but it’s still pennies).

About a day after my previous blog post I received an email offering me some teaching work in the town where I live, an easy walk from my house. The pay wasn’t amazing (teaching rarely is – just think of all those unpaid hours of planning and marking), it was only for a few hours and I was nervous because I had only taught in the context of my training rather than in the ‘real world’  but I decided to just get over myself and go for it.

In short, I went from just a few hours to near full-time hours almost immediately. Between that, some teething problems with spending way too much time on lesson planning and my old friend insomnia, I have been exhausted and running on or near empty for quite some time. For five months in fact.

‘Exhausted from a bit of teaching?’ I hear you scoff. Yep, the one thing they don’t warn you about during training is just how tiring teaching is. Who’d have thought it? Turns out that pouring yourself out for the educational benefit of others is possibly the most draining work I’ve ever done. Much more tiring than an all night deal completion.

So, I hear you ask, what do I teach, what ages and where? Well, I teach English language to non-native speakers, I mainly teach adults and I work for a private language school in the town where I live. Is this my forever job? Have I found my new calling in life? I have to be honest, I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, while I hate the planning with a passion I do enjoy the teaching, most of the time at least. But I’m also starting to write again (more on that another time) and am hoping that I can build that up whilst teaching so that I can slowly reduce my hours.

I don’t mean this all to sound so negative. If nothing else, I have a real new-found respect for teachers – their lives aren’t the pretty merry-go-rounds of long holidays, half-terms and cups of tea in the staffroom that the haters would have you believe. The government ran (runs?) a campaign to recruit teachers with the tagline ‘Those who can, teach.’ Only now do I understand the real truth of that.

On a lighter note, here are some gems from my students:

-       The word ‘fact’ when said in a heavy Italian accent and used to liberally pepper oral work is tongue-bitingly hilarious;

-       When looking at specific collocations with the verbs ‘make & do’:

Student:         “Do? Err, do a friend? Can we do a friend?”
Me:                  “Umm…”
Student:         “I would like to do some friends while in England.”
Me:                  “Not quite, try the other verb.”;

-       Most student have no idea what the ‘V sign’ is and merrily waggle these fingers to indicate the number 2, swearing at everybody as they go;

-       The place name Phuket is a challenge. Most students instinctively deal with the ‘ph’ as an ‘f’ and then pronounce the rest to rhyme with ‘bucket’;

-       (from  Jameela, a teacher friend)
Witnessing the loss of innocence in my 10 year olds…
(playing a game, Student 1 wins round)
Student 2 : oh teetcha! It’s injuste!
Student 1 : well, life isn’t fair; and

-       (again, from Jameela)
Lesson with my brilliant kids this morning…
Me : Right, now in your teams, I want you to write as many adjectives as possible to describe people, you have 3 minutes…GO!
…
…
Student: Teacher, is asshole an adjective?
…
[shock]
…
Me: No, Pedro, it’s a noun.

Keeping CHAOS* at bay

I have to be honest; I’ve been letting the housework slip. I never really got back into my routines after the craziness of Easter, which is now embarrassingly long ago. I seem to be doing things piecemeal, here and there as I spot issues. This has led to a couple of panic-induced cleaning binges, the first on the morning of a day my mother-in-law was coming for lunch and the second the day of a party we were having.

All good and well you might think, the house is clean when it needs to be so what’s the problem? Firstly, it means I’m not really keeping up with the ‘Good’ part of my job description, tongue in cheek though it’s meant to be. Secondly, it means that I am living in a state of what ‘Flylady’ calls CHAOS i.e. Can’t Have Anybody Over Syndrome. For those of you with domestic duties who aren’t acquainted with Flylady, I suggest you look her up. She is the queen of routines, babysteps and doing anything and everything for 15 minutes. I can’t recommend her highly enough.

Back to my issue of CHAOS. For me it’s a big one. We are lucky enough to have a lot of friends and family living locally. The downside of this is that I really do need to be permanently ready for the ‘What you doing? I thought I might pop round. See you in 10 minutes….’ phone calls. And let’s be honest here, if you’re not on top of your cleaning 10 minutes is definitely not enough time to sweep the sitting room, wipe down the bathroom and hide the piles of crap that accumulate on a daily basis. In contrast, if you’re on top of everything all you need to do is put the kettle on.

I know that with some self-discipline and a little bit of elbow grease I can be back into the swing of my routines and have the place CHAOS-free in no time. Time to dig out my lists again – it really shouldn’t surprise you that I LOVE lists – and get on it. The temptation is always to leave it another day or to wait until Friday or Monday or Christmas. Luckily Flylady has some more words of wisdom to deal with this type of procrastination: “You are not behind! I don’t want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are. O.K.?” Thanks Flylady,

So, herewith my promise to jump in where I am and keep CHAOS at bay. Now where did I put those lists…

* Legal Bit – All acronyms, catchphrases and Flylady routines are Flylady’s creation and property, not mine. Please do check out the Flylady website, it might just change your (domestic) life.

Being a housewife was never ‘Plan A’

If you didn’t particularly like the rug does it matter if it’s pulled out from under you?

One minute you’re a career girl, a City high flyer working on multi-million pound deals and living the corporate dream and then the next you’re a housewife in the Shires, another recession statistic.

So here I am, a Good Greek Housewife by accident rather than by design. I never meant to turn into my mother, but I guess you can’t escape your destiny. My mother probably never meant to turn into her mother, either.

I know that I am in a very fortunate position, that a lot of people might wish for a similar lifestyle. Between my husband and the last dregs of my redundancy payment I am a kept woman.

Coffee shops, lunches with friends, weekly blow-dries, long weekends. Surely that’s the life most girls dream about? But it does get boring.

I don’t want to go back to the job or the hours I used to work as I’d never see my husband and we’re still only newlyweds! I have a few ideas about what I want to do next, mainly some writing and some teaching. It’s very early days with both, so fingers crossed and wish me luck!