Nanny diaries My other half, or Mommy as she has toe-curlingly called herself, has extended her maternity leave by a month (four months altogether) which is good news all round. Bermudian companies similiarly to American ones only give 8 weeks paid maternity which is pitiless and contrary to their view as being leaders in the free world.

We have been for some while in the middle of working on childcare for when she goes back to work. We have a place at a creche already but we have been toying with the Nanny thing for some while. The point of this post was to regale you with a situation we found ourselves in last week when we went along to meet a future Nanny.

Now, as some background almost every resource in this country is either expensive, scarce or simply unavailable. Nannies are obtainable if one is willing to ship them in from the Phillipines unknown, paid $80,000 and given a self-contained room in your house. Or you can be either very, very lucky to find one or super-rich and in both cases that does not guarantee that they'll not be sat around on their fat arses all day drinking your tea and playing the Wii, whilst your child cries in her swing.

You may know me by now and will realise that I was born sceptical, and not super-rich, or even a teeny bit rich. The creche will be fine for our daughter and it accommodates our work schedules. However, we like every other parent wants the very best for their daughter, so we investigated the Nanny scenario.

Back to what I planned to tell you then. Last week we responded to a recommendation for a Nanny share, a more affordable and perhaps a more enriching environment for our daughter to spend her formative year or so in. We went armed with questions, requests for qualifications and references. The house was beautiful but not long after the initial introductions it became very apparent that it was us that was being interviewed. Our questions were met with a sense that we were very lucky even to have the opportunity to allow this woman to look after our daughter (for a very hefty fee).

Clearly it annoyed the buggery out of me, and although I think Mommy and I put on a good performance at being suitable for the position of paying thousands of dollars a month to someone we didn't know, we were told that they'd be in touch.

They didn't get in touch and it took an email to prompt them to tell us we didn't get the position, but they will keep our name on file. What a flipping cheek, we were left to feel like despondent out of work job-hunters.  ¶ 10:44