Hello you!

Forgive my excitement, but I’m just back from the Rethink Retreats super secret filming in London.

It was an utter delight – we had a day with some of our favourite trainers giving us a full day of practical things you can do right now to deal with stress.

I did a little thing on time management tips I’d learned in all those years of film (and quite a few tips on stress management – man people really need to chill out in film!).

And we listened to great things from Jamie about stress and it’s affect on the body, Chris, our nutritionist, about how to eat for stress and we had our favourite yoga bod, Nova in to show us ways to descrunch from all the office work.
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And yet, and yet, following on from the post about ‘my servant’ – despite the shame of that term to my ears - I do seem to have utterly assimilated the fact that here, everyone has a maid.

Even if it’s only for an hour a day to wash the floors and do the washing up (or as a busy working mother said to me, ‘just to wash the children’s tiffin tins, only’).

I know this is a luxury of my life here and also, as mentioned, a social responsibility. My father drilled that into me as child in Pakistan and Africa and all the other places he lived – good socialist he was – so you have to share the wealth, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable sometimes.

But perhaps I’ve got a little over used to it. On a recent trip to
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I have a maid, which is nice.  A lovely lady called Sudha comes in a couple of times a week.

It’s a social responsibility here – as in all developing nations – I can afford to have someone wash the floors, do the ironing and cook for me sometimes. It’s nice, and having fresh cooked food in the fridge makes the whole working from home ‘oh I’ll just snack on this ancient bag of crisps I found in the cupboard’ a thing of the past. There is a steady supply of fresh homemade food in the fridge. Which is lovely. Repetitive, as her repertoire is limited, but lovely none the less.

It did take me quite a long time to call her a maid – I referred to her as my cleaner for ages. I was much more comfortable with that term, it
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