the balance of domestic bliss

Olga and I are having a love affair. Or at least, I am having a love affair with Olga. She is the fourth - and hopefully final - cleaner that i've employed since downsizing from London.

i have no shame in admitting my slummy habits including the standard hatred of ironing, unwillingness to mop floors, bemusement at the idea of cleaning the oven. all this is fine and normal, except that i have horrible double standards. i like my home to look perfect. and while i don't mind tidying all that much, the cleaning tips the balance just a little too far on my slummy scales.

in the early days of domestic life with the hubs, the issue of cleaning was fast becoming a horror of marriage. after a few exasperated exchanges, he said "I just don't know why we don't we hire someone to do it." Ooh, I love Americans.

I struggled with my childhood hangover of working class guilt for a few seconds before grabbing the Yellow Pages and dialling up the biggest ad I saw.

The well spoken lady from 'Les femmes de Menage' sounded severe and businesslike on the phone. No doubt this was to discourage any errant males who think they might be dialling some kind of sex line (tee, hee!). But it also had the effect of making me feel like i was back at school, where i had once again done something wrong. Two posh ladies came round later that week, taking a grand total of 70 pounds for there trouble and spraying our home with some cloying lemon scent that hung around for days. I was exhausted as I'd been up early giving everything a good clean, lest the ladies should be shocked by my slummy ways.

That was never going to work. Option 2 was a cleaner from the local paper. A lot cheaper than the Femmes, she promised great things ( as do all cleaners at the outset) and got to work. At first it was my perfume that I noticed draining from the bottle. "Oh well', I thought, 'she can't use that much while she's here so I'll just ignore it. Especially as she did the oven today". But then the perfume bottle disappeared, along with some of the Hubs' cufflinks ( still haven't told him, oh dear) and I knew that she too had to go.

Number 3 broke the mould by being an older man. Alan and I got along famously. I outlined the work to be done and he did it to perfection. I was thrilled and increased his money after the first month. From then on, the cleaning he did in our home seemed to be negligible. Even the Hubs admitted that he didn't know why we bothered to have Alan round as he never seemed to make any difference to the place. So he too had to go.

which brings us to Olga. Recommended by my neighbour, Olga has grown up kids and has moved over here from the czech republic. she doesn't speak much english but she's a fab cleaner, loves the little thing (who loves her right back), does our ironing, changes the bed sheets and generally makes us feel happy in our non-slummy slummy home. hence my love affair with olga. i've already upped her money (no downturn in results) and started giving her holiday pay. for now, we've struck the perfect balance. Long may it last.