I had a busy day today. First I had to go on a visit and we spent time quite nicely, drinking tea, eating cake, gossiping and discussing world economic crisis. Then the weather changed for the worse and I decided that the rainy afternoon is the best time to clean the living-room.
It's been the first time the room got a deep cleaning since my housekeeper left me, and after thinking the matter over, I came to the conclusion that it's always better to do your housework yourself than to outsource it. I remember I read somewhere that the cleaning lady only cleans the centre of the room. Well, it's true. The windows got washed, but all the nooks and crannies never did. The dust was so thick, you could basically take it out with a spoon.
I spent something like two hours dusting behind the TV table and wiping the radiator and my husband had to order a take-out since I was completely exhausted when he came home, and I had to bake bread, too! Just like with everything else, the principle of good housekeeping seems to be if you want the job done well, do it yourself!
It's interesting that I just read a discussion on domestic servants where all the gals were nostalgic about them good old days, when you had a live-in cook and a maid, not to forget the butler and the gardener. It sounds very romantic, but in reality, it's not. You lose your privacy and the whole relationship balance gets disturbed by the presence of strangers in your household. It can be necessary sometimes, and if you can afford it, why not, but personally I prefer to do my own housekeeping.
In other news, my husband's colleagues got very interested in the muffins from yesterday and asked him to share, so now I'll have to bake muffins for all of them:)
I'm leaving you with this video from Rapalje, it's a cover version of The Crown and the Ring by Manowar, and I'd say a very original one; Eric has a better voice imo, but the music is awesome. We watched them perform live in Archeon last year:
Have a nice evening!
Oh, Rapalje! I like their version of 'Wat zullen we drinken (Zeven dagen lang)':
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CZq051btlE&feature=kp
As for the fantasizing about having live-in maids, etc., in addition to the salient points you raise about loss of privacy, and the resulting change in the family dynamic, the fact is, only the fairly wealthy can afford live-in servants; even in my mom's country, a Third-World Caribbean country, while everyone middle-class can afford to have maids who come and work at their homes for the day, it's another thing to have them come and live there - fewer can afford that, I think, and I'm not sure that many want that, anyway.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I wasn't familiar with this particular song, either the original or this cover, but I just looked up the lyrics of the original, and read them while I listened to this; where the original has 'Odin', this has 'The Father'. I approve of the switch. :)
ReplyDeleteSo you know Rapalje, do you? I got interested in them because of a friend who likes them very much, last year we had a chance to watch them perform live, in a Dutch historical open air museum called Archeon, and it was a great experience. They sang Heart of Steel among other things, so I figured they could have done more Manowar covers, and found this. Yes, I noticed they changed Odin to Father, which makes the song less heathen:) I always had problems with the original text.
ReplyDeleteYes, a Dutch friend introduced me to them; I've liked them ever since.
DeleteAs for live-ins, I think wealthy British still have them, I once bought a British magazine called Lady (I think), and it had advertisments for live-in housekeepers and butlers. Here some rich people have them, too. Nowadays mostly working wives hire cleaning help, which makes little sense imo, if you waste all your wages on nannies and housekeepers, than why work at all? I guess there simply is something in an image of a uniformed maid bringing you a cup of tea in the morning, and I blame all the British TV series, like Poirot and Downtown Abbey:) They romanticise the concept, so to say, but having to manage domestic staff is just as much of a bother as managing your employees in a regulart company. Except that they live together with you and snoop on you:)
ReplyDeleteI agree; it makes little sense.
DeleteI know a woman who gets a cleaning lady to come in to clean / tidy her family's house; she's so embarrassed, though, at the state of uncleanliness / untidiness of her home, that she doesn't want the cleaning lady to see how bad her place is, and ends up doing a partial cleaning ahead of the cleaning lady's visits! Talk about pointless...
I must say that some people have huge houses+gardens though, so it makes it difficult to maintain all this property alone, hence the need for help. And you give work to someone who needs it.
ReplyDeleteThat's true; some people truly do need it. And it does help create jobs, for sure.
DeleteMy mom's sisters have all had help, but none had live-in help. Even if you have a modest house, if your garden includes fruit trees, there's fruit to pick, pruning, etc., so a gardener is helpful, too.