Photo by Jana

I guess I better tell you how I got on in my au pair role rather than in my ‘visitor of Irish pubs’ role otherwise I will have to rename this blog and reveal some very embarrassing moments of my life!

You may have already guessed that by mentioning the number of children – 4, it meant I was kept busy. The family has 2 boys (then 10 and 8 years old) and two girls (6 and a 1.5 year old toddler). They all have lovely Irish names though it took me a while to learn how to pronounce them and another while how to spell them.

It was the middle of their summer holidays when I arrived, so there was no school, no homework, and no lunches to prepare. My main duties were household chores and looking after the youngest one. A day or two after my arrival, I got a piece of card board (from the Cornflakes box) with my duties written on the back of it. This ‘document’ was passed from au pair to au pair judging by how tattered it looked. It was something on this note if my memory still serves me right: Laundry washing and ironing every day. Hoover the hall every day. Keep kitchen clean everyday. Monday – hoover the sitting room and polish, clean downstairs and upstairs bathroom. Tuesday – polish brass door knobs, wash potatoes; Wednesday – wash the kitchen floor, half day off in the afternoon; Thursday – clean downstairs and upstairs bathroom, Friday – change sheets; Saturday half day off in the afternoon, Sunday off. Pretty busy agenda and of course there was the little girl to mind and the others too sometimes. I would start around 8am and generally have a break from 3pm till 5pm and then help with preparing the dinner, cleaning afterwards and sometime babysitting – mostly on Fridays. The host father actually only spent weekends at home because he worked in another city that time, so it was nice for him and the host mother (let’s call her Helen) to go out on Fridays if he was not too tired after a long week and a long commute. I was busy, I was tired and many afternoons I took a nap during my 2 hour break; something I never had to do since I was small but I needed to re-charge.

My English was really not that great and one day Helen told me that I am ‘full of excuses’ (after I said to her when she was looking for her poppies that I did not wash any potatoes because I could not find them). I thought she meant that I was polite by excusing myself whenever I could not complete a task or did not understand. How surprised was I later to find out from a friend (another Czech au pair in Cork) what the words ‘full of excuses’ actually mean! I was a bit hurt but realised that I will have to make more effort to show and admit if I don’t understand something or if I don’t know where things are (like a big bag of unwashed potatoes is always in the garage and one has to bring a few in and wash them and store the washed ones then in a special basket under the kitchen sink – easy, right!).

One thing I learned pretty fast is that one should never trust an Irish person telling you they will be back in two minutes or ten minutes. At the start I took it almost literally, a ‘defect’ of Central and Eastern Europeans as we tend to take things literally. Two minutes mean usually about an hour, ten minutes about two. At the start I used to wait for Helen to return before feeding the little girl to makes sure I do it right but after a few days I figured it is better to feed the little girl rather than waiting and putting up with crying of a hungry child.

Another thing I have learned is that some women suffer from a lot of headaches and to get rid of them requires one to retire to their room for a little rest…but why not if you have an au pair, who can keep an eye on the kids and household for you when you take a little snooze?! A lot of tennis mornings and coffee morning meetings can also play havoc with your time keeping and even give you headaches. Today, as a mother of two in full time employment, sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to work and still have an au pair to give me a hand around the house and with the kids.

I guess I would enjoy it too and have the occasional headache or a game of tennis or maybe even a game of golf!

I had great four months in Cork in 1994. The weather that summer was lovely, plenty of sunshine and great music by the Cranberries blasting out loud everywhere! I liked the family, the city, the country. I missed the children after returning back home to my studies, I missed especially the youngest one as I spent a lot of time with her. I knew in my heart that I would come back.