*SIGH* She's resigned due to bombs. Any agencies in N London do live-out part time?

THanks Lucy 14 but the agencies I contacted were all based so far away from me, that put me off as I want someone who is not travbelling hours to and from, we have enough communters in the house dependendt on the poxy northern line, and their fees were just too high so I gave up on that and went back to DIY.

He was set to pumping paper instead of iron! But said he deffo had to go to gym tonight-even though this crisis is still underway, and if I don't keep up I will miss out on or p* off the good ones and keep having the useless ones clogging up my brain. So, I have got a bit better at this business, but made the big mistake of not having everything ready and a reliable babysitter lined up when I put the ad in-turned out I had lost my list of questions that I used last time and had to re-compose it as I talked on phone-very unsatisfactory. Have had to revise ad 3 times, and of course now it's not "fresh" anymore. And my organisation of the emails and cvs using my poxy wanadoo email account has been atrocious- it is too slow and cumbersome to look through them properly on line, I couldn't print them out conveniently as of course I am at work and with nosy hostile colleagues on my back all the time, and haven't had 3 seconds of peace at home for 3 days to do it on our decrepit printer. I definitely coudln't work for a daft woman such as myself!

I have got completely swamped by applicants so sorry if I haven't responded to anyone's helpful offers/CATS sensibly. Had to take phone off hook finally or I end up talking to no hopers for the 1.5 hours I can endure before my ear drops off, instead of the ones I NEED to talk to who have sent sensible cvs by email. Email keeps overflowing too. DH has NOT come up smelling of roses-unscheduled late home on the night the ad hit the net, leaving me to work a full day, deal with grieving departing nanny, look after dd2 on my own for 1.5 hrs, meanwhile fending off early phone-calls, and then being attached to phone until I collapsed. After being told in no uncertain terms that this would not be acceptable last night, he came home at usual time, ate, pj'd and dumped dd2 wailing in her cot and announced he was off to the gym as the clock struck 8 and the phone began ringing again!

my dd2s favorite is "Pasta Dinna!"

Thanks uwila can u pass those details on to me please? I could just about stand a live in if it was temporary too!

thanks ameriscot, I had forgotten about aupair world, must look at it again...I agree it is pretty good due to its euro bias.

oh and want to say that the nanny diary suggestion was seized and taken on with delight by my current lady, she's done a great job on it and it is very helpful esp at this potty training stage.

hi uwila

I think I will keep trying to get a live out, I have only just started to search. Nursery says no way, they are full until further notice, so I made my bed! Trying to look on the bright side, at least we have had someone good who I like for a little while! S

on other hand, maybe should try miss fg-did she meet your exacting requirments must be ok then! good luck with new puppy...

Thanks, Fio2. This is greataupair-this was my hobby for a while, constantly searching this and paying for membership so I could get the email address of perfect-sounding people from all over the world. The AP I eventually got (on the 3rd attempt and out of many many hours of searching) was pretty useless and annoying, and I finally snapped, got rid of her and found a nicer, better and very importantly for us, LOCAL, one by advertising on gumtree. Partly it was because we found we can't stand having wierd people livng in our house anymore, I admit, and we found we could get by with an expensive live-out nanny for less days plus the cheap but rather brutal afterschool club to make up the shortfall. But now the problem that plagues all these one-person solutions has arisen, she has decided to quit after only a few months of bliss. You really have to devote yourself to greataupair to get much out of it, being American based IS a problem, for example you can't just search for EU people-I had A LOT of dodgy people without the right to remain trying to con me (you are very liable if their papers aren;t in order). Stuff like the ability to swim, which I screened people out on, did not translate into the WILLINGNESS to go to a 30 minute toddler swim session, and resulted in a lot of lies and strife.

Obvioulsy I have to interview a few people in person, I realise that! But last time I had too many no-hopers despite my best efforts to weed them out beforehand by phone. Would an agency really narrow them down or just send me whoever they had?

Eden looks lovely though pretty pricey, fees are 6 weeks of the salary-presumably I have to pay that all again when the next one gets bored with the view out my kitchen window in a few weeks time. I wonder what they actually do for all that money? I've never used an agency before with any success. I am a veteran of greataupair, the pool is too big really of people who don't have a clue what is required of the job or problems of moving around London. And as I said, I found the interviewing (phone and in person) so extremely stressful, I am no good at it, no judge of people at all, and have no relatives or friends to back me up. I wondered if agencies relieve any of THAT at all. I can easily trawl through lists of applicants, and compare details about them, it's the actual personal side I can't handle well. SO far the agencies I tried just gave me either a name, or at most a very brief form filled in badly by the applicant, and a phone number, which usually didnt work!

Many thanks. Feeling slightly more positive, for no good reason really! Thinking of dropping to 2 days per week for starters, by holding boss to his agreement of working at home so I can do nursery and school runs Fridays. Thoug that will reduce the interest in the job perhaps. That nanny share website looks great, I am questioning them though as some websites I signed up for before turned out to be a pain-one had drop-down boxes that kept reverting to the wrong information about the job by themselves (apologies but no effective action resulted from my complaints), and another one I daftly put an ad on for evening babysitting separate from the daily nanny (hollow laughter, as if we will ever have time and money to do anything but work while kids are being minded), has no way to remove the ad once you find someone. It is supposed to go after a month but three months later and a complaint, I was still getting pestered by unwanted applicants. They have just dried up, in time for me to start it all again with my latest nanny's resignation. Which adds to my feeling of continually searching for childcare, instead of enjoying my little free time.