005: Planning to Sailing Around the World while Working two Jobs and Running a Family Home

Working two jobs, three kids and running a house is difficult at the best of times, but summer holidays and packing up a house ready for our big move really add to the complexity and stress. As a working mother, trying to keep on top of it all seems an impossible task at times, but it helps that a really enjoy my work and love the challenge.

TRANSCRIPT

I’ve got several jobs – Coxwain on the lifeguard boat, so my job is to patrol up and down all the beaches in Brighton and Hove. It’s not 9:00 to 5:00, it’s unsociable hours, you’re on the boat for eight hours of the day, you’ve got to be constantly alert watching out for things listening out for lifeguard posts and when the weather’s rough it’s also quite stressful because you want to make sure that you keep yourself, your lifeguards safe and also be on call for anyone else that needs any assistance on the beach.

The second job is freelance work – I take people out on yachts. You get children doing activity weeks, you get corporate groups wanting to do team building and you get birthday parties, Hen and Stag groups, they’re probably the most hilarious because they will turn up with their canapes and their bottles of Prosecco and then as soon as we exit marina – it’s one of the most precarious marina entrances here in Brighton – and as soon as you exit, the boat just suddenly starts going up and down the waves and the canapes go flying and everyone’s looking a bit green. But yeah, I love being out doing that kind of thing it’s outdoors, it’s exciting, it’s got responsibilities.

It’s very hectic in the morning trying to get ready for work and the kids off to school. Trying to do their packed lunches, get their stuff ready and then get my stuff ready as well.

I have eight hours on the boat so I need to make sure I’ve got enough food. I need to have a flask of tea, coffee, water, all my gear and then I take them down to school, some of the time I come back then try to cook the evening meal and then I cycle to the marina with all my gear. If it’s a south-westerly then it’s doubly hard. Other than that it’s a really nice cycle.

The most difficult thing is organising childcare which any other working parent would know. Kids finish school at 3:15 and I don’t get home till 19:00 – I don’t see them till it’s bedtime. I try and make it so Woody doesn’t need to pick up the kids until around 17:00. Luckily I’ve got some really good. friends around, so if they’re at a friends he’ll go and to pick them up from there. When he’s away it’s even more difficult. Woody finds – you know – he’s not used to dealing with the kids and he finds it quite difficult and [LAUGHS].. I’ll just leave that one! Sorry Woody!

Summer holidays are coming up. I can’t do so much work so I have to cut back. So I’m kind of like torn between wanting to go out and do my work which I really enjoy as well and being with the children. The other thing this summer is we’re supposed to be unwinding everything and packing up and moving on and I’m going to try and work that out around the kids so that’s going to be a bit challenging. You’ve got to kind of keep the house going. The house actually turns out like a complete tip, the kitchen is never like this in the summer holidays. You’re making packed lunches, you’re going out doing things.. come back.. tea it’s just kind of constant – it’s like being a catering industry sometimes.

It’s about keeping them active really. If they stay too long inside they’ll start fighting and the other challenging thing is, when I’m at home with the kids I’m often on call for the lifeboat so you never know when that might happen, you’re always aware that the pager could go off. The last shout was a few nights ago – it was a night I’d been lifeguarding all day so I was exhausted and it was a boat in trouble outside the marina – engine failure – and had to be towed in. So I went around about midnight probably got back in around about two. It takes about half an hour to kind of calm down again and then get to sleep so I don’t know how many hours
sleep I got that night really.

And the next day I was up, it was a school day I think and I was back on lifeguard duty from 10:30 for another 8 hours.

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