It is Wednesday. It is the beginning of my workweek.
It is the day after "Blissful Tuesday" - my nickname for my one day
off a week. It is the day I have to clean the restaurant. No getting around it.
Cannot ask someone else to do it. When you are a small business owner that has
to look at keeping all costs in controllable means then you yourself are the
multi-tasking manager of various occupations. It is a side of me that many
would never see pictures of.
I am a window cleaner, industrial cleaner (my term for
welding the large vacuum cleaner around inside and out, then swishing afterwards
the floors, cleaning the balcony and terrace), toilette cleaner, shelf stacker,
table designer, florist, personal buyer, waitress, wine merchant, reservation
assistant and rubbish collector but to name a few of my hidden professions.
Restaurant owner is for me a wayside title. I rarely get to remember that I am
one as I tick off all the things I need to do before opening our doors in the
evening for guests.
Now the self-employed aspect has a lot of advantages
but if you are not self-disciplined then forget it. Nothing will get itself
done without some elbow grease from you. When we have had a heavy day and my
part-time help has headed home I have roughly one hour cleaning up still to do
before I myself can put my feet up (that is if I can even manage to lift them;
usually I am better slipping into the bubble bath where the heaviest thing I
have to lift is a glass of wine and my book!)
When our children where knee high I used to try and
show them that Mummy was having marvelous fun scrubbing and polishing in the
restaurant by throwing an old blanket over a table. Crawling underneath and
placing blankets, pillows, a collection of books or the tape recorder with a
story on tape, biscuits and drink bottles there to encourage a "camp
out". Funnily enough what actually stuck in the children’s memories
was something totally different. As our daughter visited us over Christmas last
year and she popped down into the restaurant (we live above it) to say hi she
laughed as she saw me swishing and cleaning in full volume to my newest song
love. "Oh Mum that is what I always loved about Wednesdays. Your
loud music and that we could all sing along too. You never stopped us singing
out so loud!". Only now I realize I might have deafened them in the
process of teaching them cleaning is fun!
So time to get down to the glad rags that lay waiting
for me to twirl them around to today's choice of song after watching
"Angels Share" last night ... "Now I would walk 500 miles, now I
could walk... now I would clean these windows for you... now I would drop down
all that I do, just to see the sparkle shine through". Oh I forgot to tell
you that I make up my own words to the tunes I play. Well now you know, tee,
la, la, la.
I just do so hope that my motto of "If there is
something mundane that has to be done then turn it into an adventure, just for
you!” got through to my kids. It makes cleaning a heck of a lot easier and more
fun.
Koruswhispers