Herself has gone mad on the idea of hired help lately.

I don’t know where she go the notion from, but she likes the idea of people doing work around the place.  She takes them in; sets them to work and then tosses them a fiver on the way out.

I’m getting used to tripping over the odd Pole in the sitting room, or waking up to find a Lithuanian vacuuming under my bed.  Only last week, I found a Nigerian hiding in the airing cupboard.  She says she wont take in Irish people because they are lazy and dishonest.

I came home from a hunting trip yesterday.  It had been a good trip [four Americans and a Dane], and I was quietly savouring the memory of the SUV as it shot off the cliff into the ravine below, as I walked into the kitchen.

The kitchen was remarkably clean.  The bloodstains had been cleared off the walls, and all the work surfaces were clear of their usual clutter.  There was a man there washing in dishes.  He looked quite fetching wearing a floral apron and he had suds all the way up to his shoulders.  He was crying.

I sat him down at the table and made him a mug of tea.  I asked him what was wrong. 

“I meet the mad lady in the shop, and I ask her if she want me to bring her home.  She have a lot of bags.”

That sounded like Herself, all right.

He told me that he had offered to carry in the shopping, and before he knew what was happening, Herself had him brushing down cobwebs and vacuuming the dog. 

“I come three hour ago,” he said. “I have wife waiting for me but the mad lady take my phone so I work harder.  My wife, she will be worried.”

“I am from Ukraine,” he added, as if that explained everything.

I patted him on the head and said “there there” a couple of times. 

“I want to go home to Chernobyl,” he sobbed.  “It safer there.  This is mad place.”

I had to agree with him there.