A Helping Hand

This week I have a work experience student with me.
She's friendly, interested, smart and hard working - all ace.  She also LOVES cleaning, practically thumps me if I go to do the washing up and keeps asking if she can stay to mop the floor because mopping is fun.  This I find richly bizarre. But I'm all for it.  God knows I hate cleaning and regard washing up as the worst bit of the job.
On the first day she rather slowed me down.  It takes a while to get confident with new equipment and to feel settled, obviously.  However, the pace was far slower than I'd anticipated.  I was a little worried because I knew I had an extremely busy week ahead. Would I be able to get the Valentine and half term orders?
I needn't have worried. By Tuesday she was mucking in, volunteering to do things and really being a great help.
I tried to alternate her tasks between the workaday chores and playing with icing.  She had fun doing the faces on the gingerbread men, became a dab hand at sugar roses and loved icing the mini cupcakes. Across the week we talked about a design for a celebration cake of her own.
Today, amongst the orders for customers, we've made a vanilla and berry marble cake for her. She cut it into 3 layers, spread berry coulis and buttercream between the layers, covered with a crumb coat then sugarpaste. As I type she's making the last few roses to go on it. I think she'll be very pleased with her work.
I've missed Radio 4, talking to myself while I work and singing aloud whenever I fancy. I'll miss all the help and having someone to tackle the washing up - although I won't miss trying to remember not to swear every time I drop something!