Pages

Saturday 24 March 2012

Fancy Innocence Lost



It’s sunny in London! And it’s sunny in the Fancy Home! We may have found a new weekend Nanny! Celebrate good times!

Yes, it’s a fabulous development. And right after meeting her I went for a long jog
along the Thames, soaking up the sunshine and doing my best not to run smack into throngs of tourists.  And then I realized that I had completely forgotten to keep you, my fabulous Fancy Readers, up to date on our Nanny #2 v3.0 progress. I’m so sorry!

What? Oh, that’s right. Nanny #2, who you all considered Nanny #2 v1.0 was actually a replacement model. The real original weekend Nanny #2 was gone long before Frau Fancy found her voice. It’s the reason we were so willing to overlook so much of Nanny #2 v2.0’s, um, shall we say, lapses in judgment?

Yes, H and I were once Fancy Innocents. We used to believe that most Nannies were good people who would know what to do with small children and blend seamlessly into a busy Fancy home.

We were wrong. Very wrong. We've since learned this lesson well.

Shortly after the original Nanny #2 came to work for us, H and I were eating lunch and listening to her talk to the Minis downstairs. Actually “talk” is a very strong word for the sounds she was making.

H looked at me, fork stopped in mid-air. “Is she human or do we actually have Snow Fucking White down there? I feel like I’m living in a Disney Cartoon. Early Walt, not this Pixar stuff. Nemo would be fine. But that shit, that’s fucking annoying.”

But you can’t fire someone because they squeak, can you?

No, it was the fact that when she wasn’t physically in charge of the Minis, she lay on the floor and watched TV. Apparently she’d never heard of a dishwasher.

Anyhoo, that’s why we were happy to find Nanny #2 v2.0. She filled her days with a myriad of tasks, some of them childcare related, others caring for our home. And it was in near silence that she continually ruined my silk shirts.

But now she’s gone. And the search for v3.0 has been slow. Our one requirement (other than being a normal human with a brain) is that she speaks some variation of the German language. Swiss. Austrian. It doesn’t really matter. So long as the Minis’ language skills are reinforced and they continue to chatter away in two languages.

But fucking hell, I was almost to the point of considering Afrikaans a viable option. Fancy PA and I were working every agency in London and coming up with little to show for it. Apparently the German’s love their weekends.

Then again, there had to be somebody out there who would be a good match for us, right? I remained hopeful and it appears that we may have found her.

Keep your fingers crossed. 

12 comments:

  1. I hope that v.3.0 does indeed represent a true upgrade of Nanny #2 applications and features and does not result in having to immediately reinstall v.2.0. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alas, v2.0 has been thoroughly deleted. So 3.0 had better function as described!

    ReplyDelete
  3. 'lo FF - hope it works out.

    ps someone stumbled on my blog searching for you, hope they found you. x

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I read this title I imagined a post on a cavity search at an international airport for some reason. Glad that wasn't it.
    Re. your nanny situation, I'm sure that if the german economy wasn't quite so healthy you'd have a much easier time of it. Damn Germans and their germanic efficiency. Hope Nanny 3.0 works out!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Caught up with you at last! I found the nannies and babysitters in London 5000 times better than they are here, where they don't even have agencies or consider it a proper thing to do The younger people here seem work shy and incapable of loading one plate into the dishwasher, even their own and many of the rest are odd in different ways. You can't find someone to work the weekends? Recession...what recession?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Alas Mackie, still searching! But thanks for being my stumbling block! x

    ReplyDelete
  7. I agree! Why couldn't it be a Greek Nanny that we needed?!?!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I know, it should be easy here. And it's not like I'm offering the bottom of the pay scale. But my needs are so specific...sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I speak redneck, does that count? On a side note, I am hating Disqus, it is no longer allowing me to sign in as the Real Mrs. Tuna and link to my blog. What's up with that?

    ReplyDelete
  10. what? But we all know that you are the REAL Mrs. Tuna!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm glad I'm now up to date one the various nanny numbers and versions. My brother-in-law speaks Afrikaans but probably isn't thinking about being a nanny any time soon so you're out of luck there. Wishing you luck with finding that elusive nanny. If it were me hiring, no one would be perfect enough to look after my little ones. That's the kind of control freak mother I am. Not a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is the trouble. Fortunately I have no trouble finding people with far more patience with toddlers than Fancy here has. It's just finding the one that doesn't make me spit nails. I'm wondering if your brother-in-law would at least think it over?

    ReplyDelete