Life in the Public Eye

I'm fortunate enough to be married to the most wonderful guy.  He's a brilliant husband and father and he's one of those lucky people who have found their perfect career.  He's a publican, licensee, landlord, whatever you want to call it.  I've never really seen anyone as suited to their job as he is. I'm in complete awe of the amount of stuff running through his head.  (Saying that, at this moment in time he's sat playing FIFA on his Xbox).

We live above the pub and this has massive benefits for us as a family.  We don't need to pay rent and utilities as these are covered by the business.  We have a lovely beer garden which, thanks to the talents of one of our staff members, was an absolute riot of colour in the summer and, most importantly, because we live where we (ahem, he) works we get to spend much more time together as a family.  The daily commute isn't too bad either.

Recently though I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by it all.  Maybe it's something to do with having a new baby in the flat but I'm really starting to feel that we live our lives too much in the public eye. Nothing seems completely private to me at the moment.  Yes we have a beautiful beer garden but we have to share it with the customers.  We don't have an outside space to call our own and I miss that.  There are two homely log fires downstairs that are lovely to sit by, especially with a snuggly baby, a ball of yarn and a crochet hook but again, they are downstairs in the "public" area.  Not so good when you don't want to make polite chit chat (and EVERYONE comments on my "granny" crafts!)

One of the main issues I think for me involves our front door.  The entrance to our flat is through the back of the bar and there is a door that leads either to the cellar or to our "front door".  When we first moved in there wasn't a door there but I insisted on having one fitted for privacy's sake.  The issue I have now is that the staff don't bother to knock on the door they just open it and shout up.  Not ideal when you have two kids under two and they nap a lot.  It's also not great for me to be honest.  Yes we have told them again and again to ring us but it doesn't always happen.  I even put a sign on the door but again, I don't think they actually look at it.  I think I'm going to paint it to look like a proper front door with a letter box and everything.  Maybe that will work?

The other thing that makes life in the pub difficult are the weekends.  Specifically the nights.  We have a DJ playing and he's very good, don't get me wrong, but the music is very loud and unfortunately our bedroom is right above his speakers!  I kind of solved that problem though.  We bought a baby monitor with a vibrate setting and I got myself some earplugs.  Bingo! A good night's sleep!  Then Alice arrived.  She will eventually share a room with her brother but, until then, she's in with us and so the ear plugs have been retired to the bedside cabinet.  It's all well and good having a baby that sleeps through the night but I don't!  

Yes, it is difficult living and working in a pub.  The hours are long, drunk people are a nightmare and there's always the possibility of trouble but, as the Husband said recently, the gift of being able to see his babies whenever he wants makes up for the hardship.  I also like the way my son (and I'm sure my daughter) is growing up to be a friendly, sociable and confident little person, learning different things off different people.  So for every down side there is an up side.  Speaking of up sides, does anyone fancy a drink...?