“It takes a very long time to become young.”
It’s been a year and also a month of firsts. I’ve had my first birthday without James . I thought I had lost everything, not so, my youth has now decided to fuck off . This was a tricky day in which the Pod went all out making as special an event as could be. There were so many presents, a ridiculous amount and they really could not have done more. My Au Pair Paula lit the breakfast table with candles and presents much like it might have been done this time last year. She’d secretly taken photos of the kids and had these framed for me. Paula has had a birthday too (Nineteen). Her boyfriend Yan and I have been in cahoots for weeks planning his surprise visit.
She is currently downstairs cooking brunch for her friend Toni, another Au Pair. Toni is a singer and is downstairs signing a much improved a-cappella version of Jermyn Jackson’s “We don’t have to take our clothes off, to have a good time”. Their cooking smells slowly meanders up the stairs along with their happy voices and giggles. I love having Paula in my house for the same reason I loved teaching teenagers back in the day. Because the youth are like tonic. I’m trying to cloak myself in some on their good cheer and optimism at a time when my stash is running low, they have so much, surely they won’t miss the measly amount I need? Much like husbands, it seems Au Pairs, are also not created equal. And it’s so difficult when you have a prefect one, as without them you are a little bit screwed and only then do you realise that you wished you’d had someone mediocre.
For Paula.
me.after.you 