Our station in life...

At the weekend I babysat for the first time in more than six years. I now live a truly contradictory life – BAZAAR parties and press trips one day, bath-times and bedtime stories the next. Sadly the last two months of my internship have left my Barclays bank account battered and bruised, and fear of another overdraft fee come rent day has forced me to take on a second job. Of course, the slightly-OCD-person-that-I-am started planning this job more than six weeks ago, but to work with children in the UK you need to be confirmed by the Data Protection Act, and it takes 40 days (and 40 nights) for Scotland Yard to make sure you’re no one who would offend Sherlock Holmes.

So now, at least three nights a week, you’ll be able to find me lazing on a couch, watching the clock and waiting for the parents to come home. Yes, I really do feel sweet-sixteen all over again.

Not one to feel sorry for myself, and not wanting to destroy the image of success I have been attempting to create, I must point out that these families are all uber-wealthy, and the couches in their gorgeous abodes are all very, very comfy. The Intern isn’t suffering too much, and her wallet loves the extra padding.

Saturday night introduced me to two charming little cherubs as well. Eight-year old twins, relocated from the States, boy (B) and girl (G) are just as polite as can be (B shook my hand when he introduced himself!). While I kept G company in the lounge room, watching Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, B was in the kitchen watching a documentary on the building on a space ship that he had already watched, “ten times, maybe more”… Curious, I asked if he wanted to be an engineer when he grew up… to which he replied,

“Well, there are a few jobs I want to have, really. I either want to be the head of an oil company, or the head of a company that makes really big planes, or the head of a… (He went on heading another few large corporations), or the head of an airport. Yeah, I’d like to be the head of a big airport.”

It’s nice to aim high, isn’t it?