Villa Life

You might think this is going to be a glamorous entry because of the title, but I assure you it is far from it.

The Villa

Sometimes when people have too much money they don’t know what to do with themselves so they buy a yacht. Basically a floating hotel that can take you almost anywhere in the world at your disposal. But this isn’t always enough so,  what a lot of yacht owners do is buy Villa’s as well. And not in a different place, no sir-ee, they buy a villa that is just up the road from the port that their boat is based in because when you get bored of the boat, you go up to the villa darling. And visa-versa.

So I found myself being taken away from the luxuriously air-conditioned interior of a super yacht where my most strenuous task was perhaps hoovering, to an ancient, dilapidated building where the furniture was older than me, clearly no magic cleaning fairies lived, and had recently fallen prey to a disastrous septic tank leakage and was now entirely covered in mouldy spores.

Beautiful olive tree

It has been the boss’s family holiday house for nearly five decades and not very well looked after. The boss’s wife, refused last year to stay there and I don’t blame her in the slightest. To say it needed re-doing is an understatement. So when the septic tank burst it gave her the perfect excuse to chuck the ancient furniture and start afresh. It was originally meant to be the top three rooms but it soon turned into so much more. Luckily we were left out of most of the upstairs re-modelling but we were dragged, forced smiles and fake enthusiasm on hand, to do all the dirty work. That’s right, there we found ourselves, in the middle of what I swear were the most scorching days of the summer, carting LOADS of crap in a wheel-barrow, up and down the hill. TV’S, couches, toys, tables, chairs, paintings, crockery, you name it, we chucked it.

Poolside view

Between the sweltering heat, heavy lifting and madam’s high pitched voice in our ears, I’m surprised no-one was killed. For four whole days we continued like this. Boris was near resignation point with the shelving incident, Tom, Ruben and Al were getting seriously ripped – against their will, Lisa and I were having our ears drilled and choking on mouldy spores, and all of us felt like we were going to drop down dead if there was so much as a light breeze the blew in our direction.

There was, however, a time at the end of the day that was magical. The boss barbequed all types of meat, there was bread of every kind, tomato tartar, and of course, the cakes. We all got to enjoy the sparkling pool and a cold beer. We also played badminton and boulles on the perfectly manicured lawn. That was our silver lining. But just as we were all getting comfortable with the good life, back to the boat we went, uniform, ice-buckets, dinner service and just like that the French Dream was shattered.

The boys playing Boulles

Pool break for Captain and Lisa

The funniest moment had to be when Madam was toasting us for all our help and said: “Ah but it was fun, and I think everybody enjoyed themselves.” This statement was greeted by silence and everybody hastily took a sip of champagne before they either laughed or swore at her.

Being subjected to this kind of manual labour, which is not in the original job description can really open your eyes. And here are some valuable lessons I have learned:

1)      Don’t marry for money, it isn’t everything, in fact in the greater scheme of life it means nothing.

2)      Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, whether it’s the gardener, the garbage man or Richard Branson, they are all people with lives and families and stories that should not be judged or dismissed because of their occupation.

3)      Don’t let Tom get hold of an electric fly swatter.

4)      Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes always gives you the best perspective.

5)      There’s nothing a cold glass of wine can’t fix.