Fingers Crossed (again)
This has been the first day of a new venture in help with the garden. We’re not sure what to make of this chap; but it may simply be that he is shy. Not unknown among rural types. He has done an excellent first day’s work, and he is clearly keen to do more. But we have a new rule and intend to stick to it. He gets paid, somewhat over the going rate, in his hand, in cash, at the end of the day. If we have to get in the habit of keeping money in the house then that is what we will have to do. It’s different with someone like our friend the Hamster Loving Hippie, who gets paid up front at the beginning of the month, and comes most faithfully to clean up after us, with never a problem and changed days by negotiation when necessary. But we have come sadly to realise that with outside help, though the gardeners and handymen very much like being paid up front at the beginning of the month, since there is any amount of bad weather to be had in large helpings hereabouts, the result is that you go to the bottom of the queue: rather than building loyalty, the thinking goes, ‘Okay, that’s money I can count on. So if x wants me tomorrow, that’s extra, and I’ll find a day to get out …’ and then he doesn’t, and it all goes pear shaped. The logic is self evident, and the result is that the gardener gets more and more in arrears with days brought forward for a summer that never comes. We have spent a small fortune on garden work which hasn’t been done in the last three years, and I’m afraid that the new chap will feel the benefit of this accumulated wisdom.