Bloom Where You’re Planted

It’s funny who gets to teach you life lessons and inspire you at the same time. Yesterday I had a guy here working on the phone line all day, and today I’ve been banished from my computer by a force of nature. I have two ladies who work part time for me – one in the house and the other in the garden – sort of overlapping as they decide. If you think that women don’t make the best gardeners I can promise you that this one is a dynamo. Elisa in the house, who is the ultimate ruler of the world in disguise I think, is like a whirlwind, and reckons my fancy vacuum cleaner with water filtration to get all the dust away is for sissies. No. She reckons that if you want clean floors you have at them on your hands and knees and can’t be forced to use it. I think she’s absolutely amazing. I’ve never seen her sit down – ever. In fact she eats her lunch while on the move cleaning. She’s perfected the art of zooming to a pinnacle which makes me envious.

Today she issued instructions that my office was to be “properly” cleaned and kicked me out. I tried to take as much as I could with me, being a bit funny with anyone other than me fiddling with all my files and bits, but didn’t get to a lot because – well – Elisa. To be honest I’m seriously OCD about my workspace, and so far I’ve never allowed anyone else to touch it. Today I failed. So I took my Kindle and carried on reading my current book, which is brilliant by the way, so it wasn’t really too much of a hardship.

The feathered horde were also banished from their daily hangout, so they messed up the lounge again instead. It’s amazing how much mess such little guys can make in a few hours.

Now I’m back here feeling like I could totally get used to this. Everything’s gleaming and shining and perfectly placed. And I’m buggered if my files aren’t all exactly where they should be. With everyone else who’s worked for me I’ve always insisted on cleaning certain areas myself, including the kitchen and my workspace. I have a strong feeling that those days are over now. This lady isn’t a bully – she’s actually a sweetie. She just out-dodges you and gets things done at hyper speed. She told me that she loves clean houses, and that she loves the process cleaning of them even more. I found this really hard to believe considering my own not so rosy view of housework. But I’m pretty sure that she means exactly what she says. You can see in everything that she does that this is true too. I’ve never asked her to do a thing – she just motors on and does what she thinks needs to be done. The feathered horde are very wary of anyone in the house for at least the first few months. When she arrived she greeted them all and immediately got on with things. They all followed her around a bit, staring – I mean really staring, and then instantly decided that they liked her.

It’s funny the places you meet inspiring people – or rather the places that inspiring people end up according to where and to whom they’re born. I reckon she’d make a fabulous president of a country, or at the very least leave everyone in her dust sprinting in the Olympics, but instead she cleans houses. She doesn’t care though. She’s a genuinely happy and confident woman, happy with her lot and her life, happy with her work, and she does it to the very best of her abilities. I don’t think that she’s capable of whining. I really look forward to the days she comes in, not only because I’m fond of the zoomers of life and like a clean-ish house, but also because she puts everything into perspective for me every time I see her. She inspires me to do my best and to have a blast while doing it no matter what it is. Maybe it’s not so much the lot we’re given in life, as what we do with that lot, and having at it right now rather than waiting for some magical future moment. She’s also taught me – rather abruptly – that I don’t have to do everything myself, and most certainly that I don’t do any particular thing any better than anyone else. It can be quite cool to sit back now and then and let someone who really wants to take the reins for a bit – ahem – sometimes by choice or not.