I love food. I eat constantly – not large portions, but I do graze throughout the day. I actually get shaky if I don’t eat regularly. Shaky and grouchy – to be avoided at all costs.
But I’m not a brilliant cook. Partly for lack of time or inclination.
There was a time when I did a lot of cooking. When I had my son, 12 years ago, I was a partner in a firm of solicitors in London, working all the hours under the sun. I’d heard of someone who was working 3 days a week for £50,000 (12 years ago, that was a lot of money!) and thought “I’d love to do that, but there’s no way I’d get the chance”.
Then I had my son – and got bored.
I love him dearly, but when he was a young baby, I was bored witless at home and decided to try to go back to work part time. Now, I’d been thinking of giving up the law, or moving firms, so when I met with the finance director, I didn’t care too much whether I kept my job or not.
It turns out that whilst I was away, they had hired someone much less qualified than me and were paying him the same as me.
So, when they said to me “What do you want?” I remembered the seemingly unachievable part time salary and said “I want £50k a year for working 3 days a week”. I had nothing to lose.
To my amazement they agreed straight away.
For a while I had the perfect work/ life balance. I enjoyed my time with my son, because it was precious and at the same time I was keeping my brain active, and I had money coming in.
So, what does all this have to do with food?
Well, that period of time - when I had two days off a week - was the only time when I actually had a chance to cook without feeling that I should be doing something else.
Over the years, though, my 2 days got eroded away.
As I built up my team, and even more work came flowing in, it ended up more like 7 days a week, and I was missing my son’s childhood.
A number of things came to a head, culminating in my husband and I deciding to quit our jobs, buy a business – thebestof – and move to Norfolk. (contd in next blog)
