September activities

Sometime during September I put an ad. in the local paper under "Work Wanted" - Girl Friday sort of stuff. It was worth it. I got two jobs. The first was a gardening job, which gave me ten hours' work and the beginnings of a spring tan - and made me stiff for a couple of days. The other is a house clean-up/decorate job. That one will continue in short bursts till the end of the year; that is, until the job is done. Have you ever heard of a situation like this?: A young dairy cocky about Gareth's (my eldest brother) age is a solo dad with three kids aged about 3, 4, and 7. He knows about vacuuming and keeping things reasonably tidy and doing the dishes, but little else when it comes to house-keeping. His friends have told him that his house needs a woman's touch. He saw my ad. in the paper and eventually rang to see if I would come and clean it up for him. He had never heard of 'spring-cleaning', ("You mean, more than vacuuming?" was his query) but his house surely needs it! Anyway, I shall be doing a bit of redecorating in my spare time, and will be quite well paid for it. The poor guy was pathetically pleased at the ideas for improvement that I suggested, and has practically given me a free hand. I'll be keeping to as low a budget as I can, but he's not worried about that, saying that the improvement will be priceless to him. So, my "woman's touch" will brought into play every so often over the next few months.

During September I also answered an ad. for babysitting over the school holidays. I got the job without any trouble. At that stage it was the only work I had, so the low pay seemed better than what I was then living on, which was nothing. It was a live-in job in Pahiatua, half an hour south of D'virke. Two children, a girl (9) and a boy (5). A few days before that job started, I got a call from Aunty Gillian in Churton Park, Wellington, asking if I could stay with Grandad for a week so that she and Uncle Ewen could have a desperately needed holiday. That sort of care is paid, and since I don't get to see much of Grandad, I jumped at the chance. I rang the woman for whom I was going to be babysitting and asked if she could find someone else for the second week as there was a family emergency for which I was needed, which was the exact truth - there was nobody else available, and my aunt and uncle badly needed that holiday. To my surprise (I can only see it as God's doing), the children's mother said yes instantly and wasn't at all stressed about it. So, I ended up spending Monday evening to Saturday morning of the first week of the holidays full-time babysitting and cooking for the two children, who gave me very little trouble. I learned a few useful tricks that week. I spent Saturday night at home, then left by bus on Sunday afternoon for Wellington to spend an even easier week with Grandad. It was a great week for all concerned. The holidayers had a wonderful few days away, Grandad loved seeing so much of me, and I enjoyed seeing so much of him and also finished a very difficult photomosaic tiger jigsaw puzzle and read 5 Biggles books. Oh, and continued an old tradition while staying with Grandad - watched his copy of "The Sound of Music"! We used to watch it every New Year while staying at his place. That was back when he lived on his own. I came home by bus on Sunday afternoon, rang a farmer about a job he had for me, and got up early the next morning (in spite of the Daylight Saving time-change making it difficult) to go out docking. Anyway, I spent 5 hours yesterday morning doing that, then came home and finally checked my email after two weeks away to discover quite a few birthday messages that had been sitting waiting for me for most of those two weeks. :c)