A question for live-in nannies

[PaddingtonBearLondon]

To live-in nannies: What's the nicest thing that your family's done for you to make you feel at home? Or what do you wish that they'd done?

One weekend I was ill, and my MB bought me a tray with various food and drinks on. That was lovely.

However, the nicest thing for me was feeling part of the family. Each Friday MB would invite me to have a curry and some wine with the family. It was lovely, and made me feel very welcome and involved. We would watch a film and chat and I loved it. I still miss it now, and haven't been in that role for 4 years.

One family bought me a huge bouquet of flowers that were in my room on the day I moved in with a big box of Body Shop goodies, that was a lovely start to a fantastic job. The same family would always let me know if they were having a takeaway if I was in and invite me to join them with a few bottles of wine. The dad had a very interesting job and after a glass of wine or so the stories would start flowing.

Respecting my privacy and making the children stay out of my room was much needed. Allowing me to hang my own pictures in my room to make it feel homely was great and the dad did all the hammering for me!

Making them feel at home and not like they are intruding out of hours. At the moment it feels like my employer is annoyed when i'm around out of working hours which makes me feel like I am constantly tiptoeig around her :( hopefully it's just pms as normally we get on great; share a bottle of wine/takeout, have a gossip when she's about etc.

A few years back I was live in, got swine flu and my employer kicked me out of the kitchen, made tea for me and sent me back to bed. Every morning until she thought I was better! Even though I passed it onto MB, DB and the 11yo charge (the 8yo was thrilled that she could walk to school by herself for three days!) They also got me a sun hat I'd been eyeing up in the shop next door to our house which I thought was lovely too :) I was ill for two weeks and it really disrupted their lives but they were absolutely lovely about it and really looked after me.

In the same job they'd offer take away if they were getting some, they really appreciated the amount of proxy parenting hours and overtime I did, would give me money to take the kids to pizza express or rent a film and other treats. They'd offer to take me to their beach house at the weekends and offered it out when I wasn't working weekends. Let me have my boyfriend at the time stay over. Generally they just made me feel like I was family and we're still in touch every now and then. I popped by on a drive down to Devon for a job interview last year and we had dinner and a nice chat, they offered me and my partner at the time their spare room (we had booked a travel lodge though) and insisted we stay at their beach house before the interview. It was lovely :)

I still miss them very much and I left in 09! I've been meaning to get in touch as I've been receiving a lot of emails from my old MB in a professional capacity which has been making me laugh recently, it's like "I know who you are and you're actually awesome!" :o